Wild Whispers Poetry Magazine Issue 1:2 October, 2025
Articles
INDEX
- the poetry of illness
- a tale of two residencies
the poetry of illness
ARTICLE BY DAVE CLARK
Beginning. Middle. End.
Story begs for this structure, this flow, a movement from start to finish. The feeling of progression, of momentum, of things no longer staying where they are.
This is one of the many things that makes living with chronic fatigue syndrome difficult. CFS is circular, spiralled, often playing out the same scenario.
things can be measured in days and years
if you have the health to do so
for the chronically ill
time is a weird beast
it is continuation
of emptiness, a grounded hog day
Nineteen years so far with this disability and story rarely captures the complexity and repetitive nature of it. People want to hear the story of it, but how do you best tell a tale that defies the very structures of storytelling?
This is why I am so grateful for poetry.
Chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, affects a quarter of a million Aussies. One in every hundred of us lives with it, and a quarter of them are so debilitated by it that they cannot leave their beds or homes. The causes of CFS/ME are largely unknown and so are the things that help. It’s living with and within the unknown.
When something is labelled as chronic, it means it has lasted more than six months.
Fatigue is because of the severe exhaustion that is not replenished by even the best of sleeps. And syndrome is the fancy word used when the medical world does not know the cause of a condition. It sounds more professional than saying ‘I don’t know.’
CFS is more than extreme tiredness. There is debilitating brain fog, dizziness and headaches, muscle and joint pain, swollen lymph nodes, sensitivity to light and noise, gut issues, struggles in maintaining healthy body temperature. And all that’s on a good day. On other days, throw in some post-exertion malaise, a delicious-sounding way of describing the increase of those symptoms after physical or mental exertion. Sometimes even a ten-minute walk can amplify those symptoms for the following month. CFS is a full-body, mind and spirit assault. We spend a significant amount of our life in the same cycles of lying down and being still, conserving the dregs of energy to then use towards one thing that day or week.
When asked, 'What's your day
looking like?' I often see a full
stop or a stomped tangerine
There is little-to-no improvement in health for most people with CFS/ME. For ninety percent of us, it is a lifelong illness. I am on twenty-five tablets, ten powders and two liquids a day to manufacture a shred of energy, meaning I can function part-time for chunks of the year, including some as a writer-poet.
I am finding poetry to be the type of writing that fits best with chronic illness and disability. It does not scream a word count at me. It is fine with me writing a few lines, an image, an idea, and letting that sit for days and weeks. Poetry lets my work slip into a moment, to feel it, to notice it, and to do nothing more than that. There is no need to take that juncture somewhere, to sum it up or give it a happy ending. Poetry lingers in the occasion, savours it, honours it for what it is. There is a patience and comfort I find in the poetic. It is gentle on my illness and helps me share its rounded story.
Poetry helps break the monotony of disability. It helps to tilt my view, seeing the same things from new perspectives, to hold the heavy in lighter ways, whether through humour or compassion or a full-blown rant.
my circadian has as much rhythm
as cabbage and only I sleep well when
the nervous system stops attacking
many morns are motionless stretches
of daylight wastings
and emotionless lectures
from unmet expectations
and only when I stop measuring
time do I find
a skerrick of meaning within
whatever all this is
When I find meaning in an experience, even the most difficult of ones, I hold it differently - not necessarily up to the light of solution or silver linings of goodness. No. It still sucks, it will always suck, yet I find it sits in me in a less-dominant manner. Poetry gives me the outlet, the practice that shifts how I sit with chronic illness, a companion I will most likely always travel with.
Story begs for this structure, this flow, a movement from start to finish. The feeling of progression, of momentum, of things no longer staying where they are.
This is one of the many things that makes living with chronic fatigue syndrome difficult. CFS is circular, spiralled, often playing out the same scenario.
things can be measured in days and years
if you have the health to do so
for the chronically ill
time is a weird beast
it is continuation
of emptiness, a grounded hog day
Nineteen years so far with this disability and story rarely captures the complexity and repetitive nature of it. People want to hear the story of it, but how do you best tell a tale that defies the very structures of storytelling?
This is why I am so grateful for poetry.
Chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, affects a quarter of a million Aussies. One in every hundred of us lives with it, and a quarter of them are so debilitated by it that they cannot leave their beds or homes. The causes of CFS/ME are largely unknown and so are the things that help. It’s living with and within the unknown.
When something is labelled as chronic, it means it has lasted more than six months.
Fatigue is because of the severe exhaustion that is not replenished by even the best of sleeps. And syndrome is the fancy word used when the medical world does not know the cause of a condition. It sounds more professional than saying ‘I don’t know.’
CFS is more than extreme tiredness. There is debilitating brain fog, dizziness and headaches, muscle and joint pain, swollen lymph nodes, sensitivity to light and noise, gut issues, struggles in maintaining healthy body temperature. And all that’s on a good day. On other days, throw in some post-exertion malaise, a delicious-sounding way of describing the increase of those symptoms after physical or mental exertion. Sometimes even a ten-minute walk can amplify those symptoms for the following month. CFS is a full-body, mind and spirit assault. We spend a significant amount of our life in the same cycles of lying down and being still, conserving the dregs of energy to then use towards one thing that day or week.
When asked, 'What's your day
looking like?' I often see a full
stop or a stomped tangerine
There is little-to-no improvement in health for most people with CFS/ME. For ninety percent of us, it is a lifelong illness. I am on twenty-five tablets, ten powders and two liquids a day to manufacture a shred of energy, meaning I can function part-time for chunks of the year, including some as a writer-poet.
I am finding poetry to be the type of writing that fits best with chronic illness and disability. It does not scream a word count at me. It is fine with me writing a few lines, an image, an idea, and letting that sit for days and weeks. Poetry lets my work slip into a moment, to feel it, to notice it, and to do nothing more than that. There is no need to take that juncture somewhere, to sum it up or give it a happy ending. Poetry lingers in the occasion, savours it, honours it for what it is. There is a patience and comfort I find in the poetic. It is gentle on my illness and helps me share its rounded story.
Poetry helps break the monotony of disability. It helps to tilt my view, seeing the same things from new perspectives, to hold the heavy in lighter ways, whether through humour or compassion or a full-blown rant.
my circadian has as much rhythm
as cabbage and only I sleep well when
the nervous system stops attacking
many morns are motionless stretches
of daylight wastings
and emotionless lectures
from unmet expectations
and only when I stop measuring
time do I find
a skerrick of meaning within
whatever all this is
When I find meaning in an experience, even the most difficult of ones, I hold it differently - not necessarily up to the light of solution or silver linings of goodness. No. It still sucks, it will always suck, yet I find it sits in me in a less-dominant manner. Poetry gives me the outlet, the practice that shifts how I sit with chronic illness, a companion I will most likely always travel with.
a tale of two residencies
ARTICLE BY GLEN HUNTING
Sponsored writing residencies have long been sought after as opportunities for uninterrupted creative work, and continue to be regarded as markers of literary potential. But not all residencies are the same. Moreover, the difficulty in obtaining them, and the pressure to make the most of them, can impact negatively on their effectiveness and enjoyment.
I completed residencies at Varuna and the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre (KSP) in 2024 and 2025. Though this hardly qualifies me as an expert (or even as a good writer) this precis of each retreat is intended as a guide for poets who’ve not yet had a residency, or who might have secured their first one (congratulations!) but are perhaps a little daunted by it.
Varuna
The National Writers House at Varuna offers around two hundred residencies annually from an open national call, as well as via a number of specialised fellowships based on an applicant’s location, genre, and other particulars. As a resident of Alice Springs, in 2023 I applied for one of the three annual Varuna fellowships part-funded by Arts NT for writers from the Northern Territory.
I was both thrilled and unnerved to arrive at that fabled place, particularly as I’d known about it since my adolescence, but had never even visited the surrounding Blue Mountains. I was given Eleanor Dark’s former studio behind the main house to write in, complete with its creaking floorboards and delicious leatherbound muskiness. From Eleanor’s own cigarette-burnt desk, I could watch magpies, finches, and even the occasional fox flit through the tiny orchard adjacent to the room as I worked. I shared the house with two sets of five additional residents during my fortnight’s stay, all of whom were genial, thoughtful, erudite, and committed.
I drafted around fifteen new poems during my stay, and edited perhaps two or three more. For me, this is a respectable output, if hardly spectacular. At times, the specialness of Varuna brought about a vague tension between the sheer beauty of the experience, and the need to repay other people’s faith in me that had allowed me to be there at all. That aside, my sojourn at Varuna was nourishing and inspiring. In particular, it gave me sorely needed confidence that my project had potential, and that I might just be capable of pulling it off.
KSP
Like Varuna, the KSP Centre on the outskirts of Perth is the former hilltop abode of a celebrated 20th Century Australian author—Katharine Susannah Prichard. But my residency there last March contrasted with Varuna in several key aspects. Firstly, although the application process for it was competitive, it was only partly subsidised. The fellowship I received saved me approximately two thirds of the normal guest booking fee, while still leaving me to pay for food and transport.
Writers are allocated one of the three contemporary huts away from the main house in which to sleep and work, affording views of the city through the eucalypts. Residents are able to use the house kitchen, and are welcome to attend any of the Centre’s writers group meetings. Unlike Varuna, there is no expectation for residents to interact or socialise, so I was quite content to cook my own meals and set my own work and rest patterns in relative isolation. My having been born and raised in Perth also gave me a sense of ease that had been just out of reach in Katoomba.
I typed up a few poems from before I arrived, and managed to fill many blank pages with handwritten first-draft verse. Some of the words I set down weren’t poetry at all, but they were still relevant, however obliquely. By the day I checked out, I felt another several steps closer to having a first collection of poems that maybe, just maybe, will one day interest a publisher enough to take a chance on it.
Conclusion
As a condition of my fellowship, KSP asked me to furnish a set of ten residency tips with my follow-up report. Having now undertaken two different residencies on opposite sides of the country, I believe the following hints can be helpful regardless of where and how the residency takes place:
I completed residencies at Varuna and the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre (KSP) in 2024 and 2025. Though this hardly qualifies me as an expert (or even as a good writer) this precis of each retreat is intended as a guide for poets who’ve not yet had a residency, or who might have secured their first one (congratulations!) but are perhaps a little daunted by it.
Varuna
The National Writers House at Varuna offers around two hundred residencies annually from an open national call, as well as via a number of specialised fellowships based on an applicant’s location, genre, and other particulars. As a resident of Alice Springs, in 2023 I applied for one of the three annual Varuna fellowships part-funded by Arts NT for writers from the Northern Territory.
I was both thrilled and unnerved to arrive at that fabled place, particularly as I’d known about it since my adolescence, but had never even visited the surrounding Blue Mountains. I was given Eleanor Dark’s former studio behind the main house to write in, complete with its creaking floorboards and delicious leatherbound muskiness. From Eleanor’s own cigarette-burnt desk, I could watch magpies, finches, and even the occasional fox flit through the tiny orchard adjacent to the room as I worked. I shared the house with two sets of five additional residents during my fortnight’s stay, all of whom were genial, thoughtful, erudite, and committed.
I drafted around fifteen new poems during my stay, and edited perhaps two or three more. For me, this is a respectable output, if hardly spectacular. At times, the specialness of Varuna brought about a vague tension between the sheer beauty of the experience, and the need to repay other people’s faith in me that had allowed me to be there at all. That aside, my sojourn at Varuna was nourishing and inspiring. In particular, it gave me sorely needed confidence that my project had potential, and that I might just be capable of pulling it off.
KSP
Like Varuna, the KSP Centre on the outskirts of Perth is the former hilltop abode of a celebrated 20th Century Australian author—Katharine Susannah Prichard. But my residency there last March contrasted with Varuna in several key aspects. Firstly, although the application process for it was competitive, it was only partly subsidised. The fellowship I received saved me approximately two thirds of the normal guest booking fee, while still leaving me to pay for food and transport.
Writers are allocated one of the three contemporary huts away from the main house in which to sleep and work, affording views of the city through the eucalypts. Residents are able to use the house kitchen, and are welcome to attend any of the Centre’s writers group meetings. Unlike Varuna, there is no expectation for residents to interact or socialise, so I was quite content to cook my own meals and set my own work and rest patterns in relative isolation. My having been born and raised in Perth also gave me a sense of ease that had been just out of reach in Katoomba.
I typed up a few poems from before I arrived, and managed to fill many blank pages with handwritten first-draft verse. Some of the words I set down weren’t poetry at all, but they were still relevant, however obliquely. By the day I checked out, I felt another several steps closer to having a first collection of poems that maybe, just maybe, will one day interest a publisher enough to take a chance on it.
Conclusion
As a condition of my fellowship, KSP asked me to furnish a set of ten residency tips with my follow-up report. Having now undertaken two different residencies on opposite sides of the country, I believe the following hints can be helpful regardless of where and how the residency takes place:
- Have at least have one goal in mind, if not more, before you begin.
- Be prepared to be flexible with your schedule and your expectations.
- Try not to be distracted by the solitude. Use music, podcasts, or the silent conversation of books.
- Try not to introduce unhelpful distractions.
- Use the time available to you as your playground and your canvas.
- Remember that making mistakes is a valuable learning resource.
- “Off” days aren’t necessarily a waste. You may need to experience other things or process for a while.
- Be honest with yourself if you’re procrastinating. If it’s because you’re scared, what you’re avoiding is probably very important. If it’s because you’re bored, perhaps you should reconfigure the work or write something else.
- Respect your own boundaries and have others respect them, too. But check in with your fellow beings from time to time.
- At least once you should get up early and write immediately, before you have time to think and spoil things.
The Twilight Observator, Jennifer Kornberger
By Colin Young
This second collection of poems by Jennifer Kornberger is steeped in a poet’s understanding of light and seeing, interwoven with optics and astronomy. There are poems set on the south coast or in Fremantle, as well as a series in the former Yugoslavia, reminding us of the tattoo of war on everyone’s minds. Jennifer muses on motherhood and the anguish of bringing up her children in the last section. These finely crafted poems are moving, yet devoid of sentimentality.
A keen power of observation informs the whole work. Anchored in reality, it nevertheless hints at worlds just beyond our vision. $26.00 AUD 5islandspress.com
This second collection of poems by Jennifer Kornberger is steeped in a poet’s understanding of light and seeing, interwoven with optics and astronomy. There are poems set on the south coast or in Fremantle, as well as a series in the former Yugoslavia, reminding us of the tattoo of war on everyone’s minds. Jennifer muses on motherhood and the anguish of bringing up her children in the last section. These finely crafted poems are moving, yet devoid of sentimentality.
A keen power of observation informs the whole work. Anchored in reality, it nevertheless hints at worlds just beyond our vision. $26.00 AUD 5islandspress.com
The 2025 Rhysling Anthology (2025), Pixie Bruner ed.
By Angela Acosta
Looking for poems about dragons or life in space? The 50 short poem and 25 long poem finalists for the Rhysling Award for best speculative poem showcase the full breadth of what the genre has to offer. From cyberpunk to modern-day folktales, these imaginative poems envision how future humans might honor the dead, live forever, and miss home from many lightyears away. I delighted in the rich cartography of oceanic zones, spaceships, and deep woods across all styles of verse. The poems call readers to explore vast realms of speculative poetry, reminding us of the human experiences that lay within. $15.95 USD Amazon US
Looking for poems about dragons or life in space? The 50 short poem and 25 long poem finalists for the Rhysling Award for best speculative poem showcase the full breadth of what the genre has to offer. From cyberpunk to modern-day folktales, these imaginative poems envision how future humans might honor the dead, live forever, and miss home from many lightyears away. I delighted in the rich cartography of oceanic zones, spaceships, and deep woods across all styles of verse. The poems call readers to explore vast realms of speculative poetry, reminding us of the human experiences that lay within. $15.95 USD Amazon US
How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope (2021), James Crews ed.
By Lori Zavada
Poetry stirs inside me a spiritual osmosis, a rebalancing, a lightness in exchange for lost hope. “How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope,” an anthology edited by James Crews, is the perfect example. The poetry collection emphasizes how unity, support and love can help us navigate a complicated world. See all books and online courses offered by James at jamescrews.net. Likewise, the Poetry Pharmacy promotes healing through consults and “prescriptions,” vials of verse, seasonal anthologies and first aid confectioner kits. Learn more at poetrypharmacy.co.uk. For online resources, remember to align with your time zone. $24.99 AUD Amazon Au
Poetry stirs inside me a spiritual osmosis, a rebalancing, a lightness in exchange for lost hope. “How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope,” an anthology edited by James Crews, is the perfect example. The poetry collection emphasizes how unity, support and love can help us navigate a complicated world. See all books and online courses offered by James at jamescrews.net. Likewise, the Poetry Pharmacy promotes healing through consults and “prescriptions,” vials of verse, seasonal anthologies and first aid confectioner kits. Learn more at poetrypharmacy.co.uk. For online resources, remember to align with your time zone. $24.99 AUD Amazon Au
c. 2025 All Rights Reserved. Wild Whispers Poetry Magazine
