AN INTERVIEW WITH LINDY WARRELL: By Kuma Raj Subedi

 

AN INTERVIEW WITH LINDY WARRELL

By Kuma Raj Subedi

The novel remains my first and foremost love, but poetry is more fun, offering more immediate gratification in the company of others: Lindy Warrell

Kuma Raj Subedi,
poet, writer, and academician

Lindy is an anthropologist, blogger, poet, and novelist. Growing up with her head in books, she dreamed high in a mulberry tree to become a writer, a recently fulfilled aspiration. As a child, Lindy lived in Post-War Japan. She did postgraduate research as a single mother of three in Sri Lanka and has worked with First Nations people across outback Australia. At 81, Lindy lives the good life in the popular Adelaide seaside suburb, Glenelg. She is the founder of the poetry critique group, TramsEnd Poets, and runs two poetry groups at her local community center, where she also teaches meditation. Recently, her second novel “They Who Nicked the Sun” has been launched. 

Kuma Raj Subedi, himself a renowned poet, writer, and established academician in Australia, interviewed Dr. Lindy Warrell and asked her a range of questions from the time when she took up writing seriously until now as a popular poet, writer, and novelist.

KRS: Some creative people say their formative years play a crucial role in their writing. You lived in Japan as a child and in Sri Lanka later as the mother of three young children. Have these factors influenced your writing?  

LW: I don’t doubt that my formative years played a crucial role in my work. My years shaped my way of being and seeing socially and culturally. My parents were hoteliers, so I grew up in the public eye, which caused me to become at once brash and extremely reclusive, and I became highly observant in what was a labile and challenging environment. Living in Japan then complemented what I now see as my extended journey as a people-watcher, in pubs, as an anthropologist, and, of course, as a writer. 

Where my early life was about bars, bookmakers, football, and high-stake poker, in Japan, I learned to love villages and paddy fields, steamed rice, temples, Geisha, and, from traveling in chauffeur-driven comfort against the grey background of war with my mother, the Daibutsu Buddha. My father, a major in the Australian Army, was assigned to refurbish the Marunouchi Hotel in Tokyo for the British Occupation, so I lived for four years in a different cosmos that still echoes in me. I am starting to plan a novella about those years called Beyond Ginza. 

As a postgraduate researcher in the 1980s, I took my three young children to Sri Lanka for postgraduate research over a couple of years. It changed them, just as Japan changed me. It confirmed for me that finding your way in other people’s worlds forces you to become reflexive about your own, which is invaluable for a writer.

KRS: You are now 81, having published five collections of poetry and two novels since you turned 75. Which is your favorite genre? 

LW: I love this question, but I am afraid I don’t have a straightforward answer. Growing up in hotels surrounded by strangers can be lonely, so I read a lot. There was no television then, and nothing even hinted at social media or cell phones. Novels were my escape; they allowed me to glimpse other ways of being. I would lie on my bed, reading for hours by day or by torchlight beneath covers at night. 

I initially came to poetry through elocution lessons at primary school, where I learned classical poems by rote. My parents thought it would help me in life if I were well-spoken. At university, as a special entry student who left school at 15, I thought poets were snobs and dismissed poetry, but when I retired and joined poetry workshops, I learned that poetry is for everyone, and I could write poems about ordinary things and get away with it. 

The novel remains my first and foremost love, but poetry is more fun, offering more immediate gratification in the company of others. 

KRS: As the founding convenor of TramsEnd Poets, a rigorous poetry critique group, can you tell me why you started it, how it operates, and whether it has helped you hone your writing skills?  

LW: Yes, I started TramsEnd Poets eight years ago when I moved into a retirement village closer to the city and hospitals for my last years! I had been writing poetry for several years as a member of two poetry groups, but I wanted to start a group near home. TramsEnd Poets takes its name from its location, at the end of the tramline in the city. It is composed of accomplished poets who, together, are learners through the power of critique. From critique—there is no criticism—I discover something new at every meeting. It’s like a magic trick. 

KRS: I read in your poetry book, Dressed & Uploaded, that the cover poem, “My Skeleton and Me," is one of your favorites. What makes you say that?  

LW: That little poem was highly commended for the New Poets Prize at Friendly Street Poets, a long-running and highly respected poetry group in Adelaide. I missed the prize, but it meant a lot to me to be singled out for commendation. More particularly, the poem amuses me even though it embeds a rather Buddhist philosophy. I literally met my skeleton while slothful on a sofa, not during formal meditation. However, I doubt I could have written it had I not been a mediator. I recommend we all make friends with our skeletons. 

KRS: Many poets write about their lives, while others reflect the society they live in. Why do you write? 

LW: My poetry is eclectic, and I’d say it's not intentional. I write neither to theme nor topic. Different things trigger me to make a poem; sometimes, a line or a phrase jumps into my mind. I’m not fond of confessional or overly romantic poetry or even idyllic stuff. Sometimes, I write an edgy poem with political undertones, but I don’t like rants. Some of my poems are philosophical, and I have written quite a few about my country, its landscape, its history, and its fauna and flora because I love those things. In the end, I write because I must, because I have something to say. I love shaping those early drafts, seeking better ways to share images or ideas that are often inchoate at the beginning. 

KRS: I'm turning to novels now. Please name some of the books you’ve read that still resonate with you.   

LW: Two works spring to mind. One is the Nobel Prize-winning classic by Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy, and the other is Vikram Seth’s magnificent tome about a new India emerging from partition, A Suitable Boy (1993). 

First published in Arabic in the fifties, The Cairo Trilogy appeared in English in the 1990s, when I read, nay, devoured each book and each word. Even now, I am in awe of the skill these two writers bring to the page and the world. I love the way they examine momentous social upheaval and historical change through stories of intimate family life with characters who charm and entice you into a singular universe of meaning. I dare not go on, as my mind is a crowded library of works from anthropology and philosophy to novels and poetry over a long life. 

KRS: Should literature reflect society? If so, why? Or, why not?  

LW: In retrospect, I suspect most literature gives us a window into the world it inscribes. As writers, we are of our time, as reflected in our work. However, when a new novel appears, it frequently carries a portent. Writers—good writers—see ahead of most of us. They give their readers insights and offer visons for the future that we may never have come to alone. That is the brilliance of great literature. 

KRS: The Publican’s Daughter was your first novel. What did you want to achieve by writing it? Could you shed some light on its strength?  

LW: Thank you for this question. I am quite proud of this novel. It was my dream as a child to become a novelist, and I did it. Set in the 1960s, it is the story of a young girl’s struggle with her dysfunctional family when they take over an outback pub. Australia loves its outback. That romantic culture is idealized in television advertisements for Qantas, for example, yet I lived in the bush when I was younger, and it was rough, chauvinistic, and racist. I wanted to show the raw, naked bush. I suspect that was its strength. To come back to your earlier question about whether writing reflects society, yes, this book attempted to do precisely that, albeit with a critical eye. 

KRS: You recently launched your second novel, They Who Nicked the Sun. Was it a difficult book to write?   

LW: No, it was not hard work, but it forced me to think. I didn’t realize, for example, that the book had a political agenda; it’s subtle, but it emerged as I wrote about the homelessness that awaits many women in their later years. To lead into your next question, women often run from domestic violence, like my protagonist, only to find themselves in extreme poverty. 

KRS: Domestic violence has been a growing concern in Australia lately. Is it the main theme that you wanted to explore in the novel through the character of sixty-year-old Ruby Marie Wilson?   

LW: My aim in writing They Who Nicked the Sun was to examine how someone who has endured many years of domestic violence can rediscover herself and embrace a new life of creativity and freedom. The book refers to the violence as a backstory, but the point is not to evoke or describe that. Rather, I wanted to include an uplifting note by focusing on the aftermath of violence. Women can—and many do — recover from the loss of the social and financial status of wifehood to find new ways of being and belonging. 

KRS: How do you see your reader’s response to your body of literature? Is there any specific response that has particularly sharpened your writing style or changed the course of your writing?   

LW: I am always thrilled to hear that someone has enjoyed my writing, whether that be a novel, a poem, or even my blog posts in which I examine various aspects of my life about the world we live in. People say that my writing resonates with them. What better feedback can you get than that? 

With my recently released novel, They Who Nicked the Sun, several people told me that they loved the story. 

On the cover of my poetry collection, A Curious Mix in Free Verse Jude Aquilina writes that it is ‘…like the random jam of a jazz band.’

Reader comments about The Publican’s Daughter novel include — 

‘Your fluidity and playfulness with language is up with the best of them.’ Julie Cahill 

‘I was left wanting more.’ Jenny Huddlestone-Riddle 

‘It’s one of those books that will stay with me…’  Helen Burrowes 

‘The Publican’s Daughter…raises so many issues about living in the outback of Australia, the misogyny that women faced, the brutal violence and racism…Lindy — as I read your book, The Desert Landscape and Daily Life in 1960s Australia feel like they are here with me in London.’ Bronwyn Platten. Please note: wattletales.com.au is Lindy’s personal website.

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