Arthur Rex Dugard Fairburn and David Mason - Workshop 15/08/22

Hello, everyone.

Arthur Rex Dugard Fairburn was an Auckland poet who died in 1957. He attended Auckland Grammar, worked on roads and taught art.

David Mason is from Washington State. He also writes prose and plays.

Despair is evident in the first poetic text. Some of the most profound poetry touches on the subject.

How can you write about despair while not despairing?

A theme from the second poetic text is salt and salinity. Write about saltiness, whether as an aspect of a personality or more literally.

The structure of both texts is reasonably brief. Also, they are both in two stanzas. Think about writing a short poem in two parts.

Both poems also mention 'shells' - think about this word and how you could use it structurally or thematically.

Six words to attempt to incorporate into your writing from Fairburn: shattered, nothing, shells, sinister, hope, achieve.

Six words from Mason: absence, beyond, road, compass, perfect, shore.

If you have a copy of The Exercise Book (Manhire, Duncum, Price & Wilkins), turn to page "#201: The Rest Is Easy" for additional inspiration.

That's all. I hope you are inspired to write today.

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Sea-Wind and Setting Sun
by A.R.D. Fairburn

There is not anything more meaningless
than sunlight falling on broken water,
the shattered light mixed with the shattered water,
falling, sucked back to nothing.
The tide falls and reveals the shells,
returns and covers them. The sea
dresses the shore with weed, to no end.
Lovely the leaping fish, the falling wave,
the foam on the reef, the sinister current
of dark water sweeping the rock,
idle and lovely these.
And so beside this nothingness I leave you.

We have outlived this life: we are disembodied.
So, like a leaf quitting a tree, I go,
and by your leave take leave
of what we may never again
not ever again in this dispensation
hope, or dare, to achieve.

---

Another Thing
by David Mason

Like fossil shells embedded in a stone,
you are an absence, rimmed calligraphy,
a mouthing out of silence, a way to see
beyond the bedroom where you lie alone.
So why not be the vast, antipodal cloud
you soloed under, riven by cold gales?
And why not be the song of diving whales,
why not the plosive surf   below the road?

The others are one thing. They know they are.
One compass needle. They have found their way
and navigate by perfect cynosure.
Go wreck yourself once more against the day
and wash up like a bottle on the shore,
lucidity and salt in all you say.