A rural upbringing and formative years roaming the rocky hillsides of the New England continue to inspire and inform the poetry of alumnus Glenn McPherson decades later.
“It’s unavoidable; poetry is always personal...”
“It’s unavoidable; poetry is always personal,” he says. “I’m constantly investigating how I interact with my world. I am also heavily influenced by psychology, philosophy and religious texts. Those things spill out in the conversations I have with myself, which is what poems are for me.”
And as with generations of poets before him, Glenn’s engagement with nature provides a rich source of material – poems that have been published in leading Australian poetry journals and anthologies, including Meanjin, Cordite and Southerly.
“Being a country boy living in the city, the country is something that my heart longs for,” he says. “There is an element of the sacred to it. We do a lot of bushwalking as a family and in the process of being in the bush, something happens. It triggers a line or an idea or an image that I can appropriate for whatever purpose I like. There’s a nice echo to all the other poets who have also written about the sun and the moon.”
Looking back on his time at UNE, studying teaching and living at Mary White College in the late 1990s, Glenn acknowledges it was an important “growing up period”. “Leaving home for the first time and having to stand on my own two feet was initially difficult, but I had a great time and loved college life,” he says. “And, like most things that affect us deeply, there’s rich poetry in that. Glencoe Tavern off the New England Highway evokes a time travelling with my university mates one evening. Such memories recoil back to me periodically and I use them regularly in my writing. I love the scenery of the New England, and the beauty in the rocky hillsides.”
Glenn had been writing poetry long before enrolling at UNE, but “loved poetry first as music”.
“I learnt classical guitar and loved writing my own songs,” he says. “Over time, the words became more important than the music, especially after I completed a Masters in Creative Writing. I play the guitar less these days and write more. It’s been a slow grind … finding little things I like and working on them. Poetry is not something you can pursue financially; it’s something I love to do, but need to fit in around family and work.”
After graduating from UNE in 2001 Glenn held teaching posts in the Southern Highlands of NSW and western Sydney. He now lives in Campbelltown and is enjoying his sixth year teaching at Broughton Anglican College, where he coordinates the school journal and continues to encounter some reticence regarding poetry.
“I still sense a fear of poetry among many students,” he says. “It’s seen as something only for the highly educated, that talks about obtuse things, and can be tricky to navigate, but many towns now offer poetry prizes and contemporary slam poetry is becoming more popular. Kids do engage well with it when poetry is taught well.”
As for his own reflections, Glenn simply hopes his readers “come along and enjoy the experience and bring their own interpretation to the work”.
“A poem is a bit like a living being; it’s been created but it moves out into the world,”
“A poem is a bit like a living being; it’s been created but it moves out into the world,” he says. “To understand it, we have to get to know it and interact with it personally. Then the reader can have a conversation about it and come to terms with the poem on their own terms.”
