Now is the time for poet

BENDIGO poet Tru Dowling says it feels a little strange finally to see her poems gathered in a classy chapbook, her name on the cover, the poems sitting firm and final on the white page. But it was always going to happen.
“I feel like I can’t not write poetry,” Tru says.
“The short story is the same – every word counts.
Tru is well-known to the writing fraternity in Bendigo.
She is completing honours in creative writing at La Trobe University, as well as teaching at Bendigo TAFE.
She is a great believer in what her own creative writing teacher, Justin D’Ath, used to tell his classes:  “It’s not whether you can teach writing, it’s that you can facilitate the creative enthusiasm, and encourage that.
“Writing is one-tenth inspiration and nine-tenths determination.
“If you really love it, it will show in your work.”
Born in Castlemaine, Tru first started writing when, at 14, she was hospitalised while doctors tried to work out what was wrong with her digestion.
It took a year for them to decide it had to do with a malfunctioning stomach flap, but in the meantime, the sick girl had found a passion for writing.
Marriage and four children took up a fair amount of time in the intervening years, but when her fourth boy was a baby, Tru began to develop that passion.
“I remember thinking, if I’m going to do more with my writing, now is the time,” she says.
She enrolled in Continuing Education, picking up courses in novel writing, short story and poetry.
By 2004, she had advanced so far she was asked to teach herself.
A workshop with Castlemaine poet Ross Donlon led to the invitation to publish her chapbook with his Mark Time Press.
Called Memoirs of a Consenting Victim, the collection contains poems that courageously tackling social issues. The title poem is a passionate and angry exploration of domestic violence.
There are also poems about family, and Tru says she is now working on a book which will take stories told by her father and craft them into poems.
“He doesn’t think what I write is even poetry, he’s into bush ballads,” she says.
“He’s such a personality, such a showman, and what makes his stories so entertaining is that he believes in them.”
Tru Dowling’s Memoirs of a Consenting Victim will be launched by Lorraine Marwood on Sunday, December 11, 1pm, at Collins Booksellers, Fountain Court, Bendigo.
There is a poem from Tru’s book online at the Bendigo Weekly bookclub: also, this week, bookclubbers recommend their best books for 2011.
To join the bookclub, and receive information about books and events, and to be in the running for our regular book gifts, email bookclub@bendigoweekly.com.au

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