INTRODUCING OUR 2019 WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE
Meet our 2019 Writers-in-Residence, in partnership with Emerging Writers Festival
MAYBE GABRIEL FAURÉ TURNS IN HIS GRAVE AND I’M DRINKING HIS FAVOURITE CHAMPAGNE
Writer-in-Residence, Kiara Lindsay shares her creative response to experiencing Maps to the Stars featuring the music of composer Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924).
part i
HOW THE TEENAGER EXPERIENCES ALL SHE HASN’T
élégie my first true love
I fall into each note clumsy from overwhelm
and feel it all like any teenaged girl
I decide I want to make emotion look easy
fool my hands steady
though from the chest they
agitate with anticipation
I make five phrases and end up on the river
admiring smooth stones under viridian water
relish any chance I get to play
an octave or more below middle C
I’m told it’s about the death of his wife
so hypothetical or not
I do it all thinking of her
I truly believe that I know what it’s like
to have a dead wife too
never having loved before
not realising I might like a wife one day
I feel her death in the
devastating repetition
imagine myself as a middle-aged fauré
contemplating a memory by the office window
glassy-eyed but reticent
my father asks me what I feel when I play
what I feel when I hear it
I look away abashed and say
of course I feel nothing
I’m embarrassed by the extent of my emotion
shove people out of the way of the sound
tell them to pretend
they heard nothing
part ii
THERE WAS NOTHING IN BETWEEN THEN AND NOW SO I ONLY SEE IT FOR WHAT IT COULD HAVE BEEN
I remember why I loved him
in the back of the salon
I let the electric blue light fall on my face
and return to teenaged-self
at the top of the andante
the piano rolls out in mechanical chords
and the cello soars on top like a proud albatross
my stomach flips in the moment the first bar mirrors
while it fakes the beginning of my first love élégie
I sink into a disappointment
padded by sound and soft rosehip light
at least the let-down is gentle and self-induced
so I get over it quickly
find something new to focus on
the finale ends in allegro vivo
the white-haired man in front of me erupts in applause
he puts his body into it
commits to it like a marriage
I’m reminded of a scene I’ve watched on repeat
replace the white-haired man with my grandfather
I never saw him so happy as he was in
a myriad matching moments
the suspense of the finish line
breaking his heart or at least
his nervous system
when I see the man wrapped in his own elation
I think how far I could come from the self
who’d roll her eyes or misapprehend
and pin it all on the resentment
she developed for catholicism
here in the back of the salon
I mourn concealed
until interrupted by the cellist
announcing fauré’s favourite drink (champagne)
he serves it to us in the foyer
I drink gingerly while I think
how strange it might’ve been
to be famous for putting people
in their memories
More about Kiara Lindsay:
Kiara Lindsay is a poet with a background in classical cello. She is interested in verse narrative and art criticism as kindling for further art-making.
She completed her Honours in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne in 2017. Alongside Bridget Gilmartin, she co-edits Inhabit Journal and runs a poetry reading series called ‘Evening Swim’.
In 2018, Kiara was the recipient of the H.B Higgins Poetry Scholarship. You can find her work in Voiceworks, Lor and Marrickville Pause.
