There is only this one hour of stillness...

by Vanessa Kirkpatrick

Anyone who has attended an event facilitated by acclaimed poet Deborah Westbury knows that she creates an atmosphere of intimacy in which all present feel writing’s important place in human experience. Sadly, due to illness, Deb has retired from her position as Poet-in-Residence at Varuna, so it’s time to pay tribute to some of her many achievements. 

I first met Deb in 2007, when I joined the Community Writers’ Group at Varuna. I was immediately drawn to her voice: the gentle deliberation with which she pronounces each word of a poem, her generosity of spirit and her irreverent sense of humour. Until I met Deb, I had embraced the idea of the solitary writer in the attic; being part of the writers’ group not only developed my writing skills but led me to understand the value of community in writing – the ways in which sharing our work, and getting to know each other, enriched and developed our writing lives. I had always seen my writing only from the inside, and so had been in that nascent stage of wanting to hold onto each word as if it were a part of my identity. Deb’s mentorship, and my involvement in the writing community she created, led me to understand that writing’s power comes from seeing it also from the outside. 

In the September meeting, Deb brought along a bird’s nest as inspiration for a piece of writing. We each held it in our hands in turn. The bird’s nest is an apt metaphor for the creative process: we take stories from our lives and shape them into something that has both integrity of structure and beauty. It is also perhaps the best metaphor for Deb’s approach to teaching and mentoring.

Some six years later, I was sitting in that same living room at Varuna and Deb was launching my first collection of poems. As she has done with so many writers, Deb generously mentored and encouraged me, guiding an enthusiastic fledgling poet towards a moment of independent flight. For decades, she has held writers in the nest of her support, until they are, to borrow Seamus Heaney’s words, ‘hatched and fledged and flown’ (from St Kevin and the Blackbird).

As well as being an inspirational teacher and mentor, Deb Westbury is an accomplished lyric poet with a fine sense of musicality and rhythm. Her writing is evocative and immediate in its sensuality, while her gift for metaphor moves the poems between the present and past, real and imagined/remembered landscapes. In Bread, for example, a ‘whole chorus of Greek women’ is imagined as a ‘nest of swans, / each in her best black,’ while Offrenda for Luke, an elegy for her son, opens with the delicate image of poppies as ‘ballerinas / discarding their furcoats by candledraught.’

Throughout her career, Deb has written with a deep sense of compassion for the homeless, disempowered and dispossessed. She frequently dedicates her readings to refugees. For those of her fellow Varuna Alumni not familiar with her work, I warmly recommend some of Deb’s audio recordings; both Crime and Punishment and and bone song are available thanks to the Red Room Company, while Deb’s reading of Masque is available as an online resource through the Department of Education and Training. It is a timeless privilege listening to this poet in full command of her verse.

While devoid of sentimentality, Deb’s poetry rings clear in its authenticity, the poems expressing her grief at the loss of her son among the most moving and powerful in her oeuvre. The poems move between urban settings and natural landscapes, primarily of south coast NSW and the Blue Mountains, which became her home in 1998. Some feature Varuna in particular, including Oak, which deserves to be quoted here in full:

There is only this one hour of stillness
before dark
and the trunk of the great oak
taking up all the window,
standing
in the rain.

Once I wrapped it with my arms
and pressed an ear against it
listening hard;
to the sound of water
seeping through moss and ferns
gathering into cascades
and rivulets
singing over stones.

And all of this ascending,
as if the oak was a long well
from which the sky drew
music and water
to itself.

Deb’s association with Varuna began in 1993 when she was one of the first writers to assume a Writer-in-Residence post here. Since that time, she has been involved with Varuna on many levels. As a consultant and mentor, she has assisted many poets with their writing careers; she has also facilitated workshops and has been instrumental in many of the poetry events included in the Varuna branch of the Sydney Writers’ Festival. She has been a manuscript assessor for many of the fellowship programs. And she has attended many residencies that have contributed to the development of her own writing.

Deb holds both a teaching qualification and a Master of Creative Arts degree. She has taught creative writing in high schools, universities and community groups, and in 1999, was guest lecturer at the renowned Catskills Poetry Workshop. She was also one of the founding members of Five Islands Press. The recipient of two Australia Council writing grants, Deb has published five books of poems: Mouth to Mouth (1990), Our Houses are Full of Smoke (1994), Surface Tension (1998), Flying Blind (2002), and The View from Here (2008). A chapbook, Winter in Stone Country, has just been published by Hope Street Press.

A few months ago, I was speaking with Deb about the specialness of Varuna, and she commented that a large part of it was to do with ‘the gift of the gift’ – that Varuna was donated to the writing community by Eleanor Dark’s son, Mick Dark. This same phrase can easily be applied to Deb Westbury, who has generously supported and mentored so many writers, nurturing their writing far beyond Varuna’s walls. It is time to say thank you.


Vanessa Kirkpatrick lives in the Blue Mountains. Her first collection, To Catch the Light (2013), won the inaugural John Knight Memorial Poetry Manuscript Prize and was commended for the 2013 Anne Elder Award for best debut collection. Her poetry has been broadcast on national radio. She is currently working on a second poetry collection called The Conversation of Trees.

Postscript by Features Editor Diana Jenkins

Like everyone else in the Varuna community, I’m deeply saddened to hear of Deb Westbury’s ill health. Deb, we’re all wishing you a peaceful, well-earned rest period and a full and swift recovery.

While we’re reflecting on gratitude, sadly it’s time to farewell Varuna’s magnificent CEO of the past 4 years, Jansis O’Hanlon.

Despite undignified attempts by yours truly to obstruct her path to the door (I’m not above diving for the ankles, but she’s faster than she looks), Jansis is leaving us early September.

I’ve been in denial about this news, but now the moment is upon us and I can’t let her leave without extending my personal thanks to Jansis for her tireless efforts. Her dedication to the role – a many-tentacled beast involving the house, the staff, the Darks, the Varuna/Sydney Writers’ Festival, the programs and the writers of Australia, who rely on and benefit so greatly from the smooth running of Varuna – has been total.

In day-to-day terms, we rarely stop to consider the vast silos of energy and, well, love that keep Varuna flourishing as an institution in a way that properly honours Mick Dark’s gift. One need only consider that Eleanor and Eric Dark’s own grandson Rod maintains Varuna’s beguiling gardens to understand that the CEO job at Varuna entails a good deal more than the position description would suggest. From the moment Jansis relocated to Katoomba, she has understood and embraced Varuna not as a place of bricks, tiles, dirt and administration, but a place of pounding hearts, curious minds and questing natures.

It has been our very great fortune that Jansis has spent four years as our Chief Executive Officer. She’s delivered well beyond that remit, operating as chief advocate and guardian as well, all with a quiet diplomacy and steely determination that will be difficult to replace.

Thank you, Jansis. I’m desperately sorry to see you go, but on behalf of Varuna Alumni, our very warmest wishes for a long vacation (naturally involving a pleasing pile of books to read at your leisure) and all your future endeavours. You’ll be sorely missed.