Author: Ruari Jack Hughes

Can We Start Again, Please?

Colourful artwork
Zig Zag Gallery 2012

This morning brought a rather traumatic discovery. The word I thought I had coined late last year — telemorphosis — turns out to have been in use for over 100 years and refers to nothing at all related to my intent that it would define my theory about how memory is crucial in the process of adaptation in writing. A big disappointment! And a big nuisance, as I will now have to devise another word/term to try and express what I’m on about in this exploration which is central to my PhD project.

The first thing I immediately did was the elimination of the blog which I began only two days ago (under the name of Telemorphosis) and set up a new blog — this one, titled Memories 2 Go. Fortunately it was possible to export everything from the original site to this new one, so not too much damage.

Once again the fact of the Web has proven itself. It’s highly unlikely I would otherwise  have learnt of this duplication of terms. Might have become a big problem when I submit my thesis next year. A good lesson in never taking anything for granted. But really, who knew? Who would have thought? Did you ever hear the word before?

Let me tell you a little about this PhD I’ve been working on for the last 7 years. Actually I made the decision to have a go at getting a doctorate over 9 years ago. First hurdle was to gain entry. Didn’t have an Honours degree so (despite holding a degree in English Lit and a post-grad degree in Education) I needed to get a Masters as a first step. This wasn’t a hardship, quite the contrary. For two years I just wrote heaps of stuff — short stories, poetry, a play, a novella and 35K words of a still unfinished novel. Got several of the stories and poems published and finished up with a M.Litt degree awarded cum laude. 

Then I was ready to start on the PhD. Right from the beginning my interest has been in adaptation; how do stories get changed from one form into another? What is the process in the writing which allows that to happen?I had a notion to try and develop a model, for want of a better word, which could be used to guide a writer who decided to adapt a story into some different form from what it was currently. Well, that didn’t work out too well. Seems every adaptation  is essentially unique. I was back to square one. After sitting in my chair and cogitating for some months I came up with the opinion that memory has got something to do with what goes on when  an adaptation is being undertaken. So that’s what I’m now puzzling out.

More about how this is going another time.

But just to finish:

Poems, plays, stories:

Their words unlock mysteries

All about ourselves

Ruari Jack Hughes

A New Role

So… today was my first  stint as a Poet in the Cafe! Very low key as Mike (the owner of La Tropicana) and I are still working out a modus operandi in terms of best days and times for me to be there. Between 12 noon and 2 pm seems to be optimum for numbers of cafe patrons, although today I was there a bit later. Even so there were four people stopped to chat, two whom I know and two strangers. Not bad considering that so far there’s no poster or other indication of who I am or what I’m doing apart from a copy of my poetry collection on the table.

I’m hoping to have articles in both Fremantle’s local papers (Herald and Gazette) in the next week or two. And a big poster stuck in the window indicating days and times I will be in the cafe.

I didn’t write any poetry today but I did write quite a lot related to my novella project which is part of my PhD program. I’ll talk more about that in subsequent posts but for now, here’s another fairly recently minted poem.

Book End

I am tired of all these readers

Who take up a book for a few hours

To annul their boredom

To pass the time

They always want the thrill

Without the passion

The danger without the harm

Sitting in their armchairs

Luxuriating in their cosseted rooms

Of safe and comfortable escape

Vicariously entering worlds of horror and spite

But not truly perilous.

Well, now we shall see

For I will write this tale

In congruous binds with mayhem

To devour their sweet sentimentality,

To choke their wide innocence

With ghastly description, with terrifying action,

With such malicious imaginings

That they will be undone

Unto the ends of their lives.

Now let the villainy begin!

Open these pages I dare you!

Slide into my world of mischief and malfeasance

Sink into a quagmire of wickedness

Come dance with death

Confront hideous nightmare

Shiver with the delicious delight of dread

But this time there’ll be no fantasy

This time you’ll not escape

Back to your ordinary, dull complacencies.

This time when you come to the end of the book

You’ll come to the end of you.

This should probably end with something like “Argh, ha, ha, ha!” Hope you enjoy it.

Ruari Jack Hughes

Casting Stones on Water

The day started well enough

We’d gone for a walk

Down to the old weir

You must remember the place

I took you there last year

It wasn’t hard to find the track

Lying just below the ridge

The old gate hanging half off

The broken hinges gone

Replaced by twists of wire

I was surprised by that

Since it was only a year

Everything changes all the time

Though we tend not to notice

The shifts are always subtle

The day started well enough

We’d gone for a walk

Down to the old weir

Do you remember the place

I think we went there one time

The track was tangled and overgrown

Still, we knew where we were going

The day was bright and boisterous

Birds cackling in the scruffy trees

A mild wind keeping the heat at bay

I remembered it being easier

But memories are unreliable

Constantly shifting and morphing

Sometimes they’re just inventions

Stuff we imagine to fill in the gaps

The day started well enough

We’d gone for a walk

Down to the old weir

You wouldn’t remember the place

I don’t think we ever went there together

The track was fitful and vague

Hardly more than an impression

The gate I’d taken for a landmark

Had disappeared, not even a post

Only shrubs scattered without pattern

I thought there should have been more

Perhaps they were just wishful notions

Reminders of other times, other places

Intrusions from the endless past

Constantly confusing our present days

The day started well enough

We’d gone for a walk

Down to the old weir

Where we spent the time

Casting stones on water

Ruari Jack Hughes

10 September 2012