I turn my attention to a debut book, Raw Salt, by multi-talented poet, writer, broadcaster, and arts worker, Izzy Roberts-Orr. That first book! What to make of it? Felicity Plunkett, in her endorsement on the back cover, guides me to consider this poet’s “range, courage, raillery and vitality.” But, at first, I am finding the voice hard to locate. Perhaps this is because I begin by reading the title poem, ‘Raw Salt,’ quite arbitrarily, as if the book is on random shuffle (33). There was a cartoon I came across years ago that still cracks me up, a fan approaches their rock idol and tells them something along the lines of “I have listened to your album many times, but not in the order you wanted me to.” But after a riffle or two, back and forth through the pages, I return to the poem ‘Raw Salt,’ because surely it must be the genesis poem of the book, Raw Salt. It will point me the way. And it does. From ‘Raw Salt.’

                                          I will hold you
like a shell to my ear, soft in the swell,
almost breath.

(33)

There is the clue as to how to allow the work to speak to you. Lean in and listen. So, I begin at the beginning with ‘Imbibed Aubade,’ and there is the courage, and the raillery (9-10). The tone veers towards chutzpah, with a rollicking edge. And so relatable! I, too, have rung dead people and waited until the call rings out, waited like a ningnong, for them to answer me. From ‘Imbibed Aubade,’

          Mumbling into the ether,
under the rumble of morning’s
rubbish run, I tell you the story
of the tawny frogmouth owl
that followed me home.
When of course you don’t reply
I put the receiver down
and run.

(10)

(However, the tawny frogmouth is not an owl, although it is owl-like. But we don’t want to get all pedantic and precious about it. If enough people decide to call it an owl, it is to all intents and purposes, an owl.)

To return to the task at hand, I know raw salt is extremely painful when rubbed into a wound. I know that abrasive stinging crust clinging to your eyelashes after a crying jag. This is a book that circles around the untimely but incontrovertible death of a singular father. And perhaps, I hope I am not jumping to conclusions, he could be a difficult father. Four excerpts from ‘Thunderstorms,’

       I’m 6, and you’re 4 when Dad won’t let us go home. I’m barri-
caded inside his kitchen, and you’re outside clinging to Mum.

[…]

       I’m 15, and you’re 13 when we’re hiding in the bushes outside
Dad’s shack waiting for him to fall asleep so we can sneak past his
snoring bulk and stow away from his pain and rage.

[…]

       I’m 17, and you’re 15 when I have to tell Dad to leave because
we can’t look after him and he can’t look after us.

[…]

       I’m 21, and you’ve just turned 18 when the ocean falls on us and
Dad dies. 

(58-64)

This book aches with the desire to communicate, and to understand. So much sifting and searching and unearthing and the sorting of bones. But when it comes to the announcement of the cause of death, the poet scatters signposts and clues — as in the title ‘Elegy For Your Liver’ and in the line from another elegy — ‘You were a good drunk that day’ (21; 18). So, we know, but we don’t know. But then in a very beautiful, formal act of relinquishment, Roberts-Orr links the loss of her father to the notable book Portrait of the Alcoholic by the Iranian American poet, Kaveh Akbar. From ‘Portrait Of The Alcoholic,’

                  after Kaveh Akbar

You call yourself by different names when you’re awake,
drinking from an upturned bell, trying not to swallow the
metal clapper clanging against your teeth. Mouthfuls of sun
go down exactly as you would expect them to – burning, rancid
and bright. Sound of a knife against glass, flicked fight
in a phone booth and the moon grinning back at you
with your face.

(66)

This is the way to lay a ghost. By resorting to poetry. Everyone wants a poem at their funeral. And everyone deserves one.

This is such a splendid book. It is so moving, and so knowing! I very much liked that sideways nod in the poem above to something John Forbes (I think) was purported to have said — “Australian poetry is like a knife fight in a phone booth.” But that’s not true, is it? Not if you don’t want it to be.

A first book by a raw, new voice, that wails and stings and flounces and flings and announces serious intent, that butts right into the conversation, and a more measured consideration by an elder poet of the path taken, of the price reckoned up, of the hard-won generosity of avocation, can speak to each other and do speak to each other. It’s human, it’s family, it’s community, it’s poetry.