2005 winner

My mother's travel diary

begins with murder -
the ship's departure from Melbourne delayed
a passenger/suspect detained for questioning,
my mother's blood singing with the operatic
thrill of it all
as if death makes everything else forgivable.
Her intent and motto pencilled in
under maps of the world;
To ensnare hearts in every country.
Never die not knowing.
On the Indian ocean she dreams
of honour among thieves,
her name on foreign tongues.
In Ireland the kissing of the stone
makes her a loyal tourist only.
There is pub crawling with Cubans in Madrid,
perfecting smoke rings and smoke screens
while acquiring a taste for older men.
hitch hiking to Rome for a Papal blessing
after picnicking on fried octopus with Franco,
Adriano, Luigi ...
French nuns on motor bikes and moments
in gondolas in the land of many waters.
My mother's travel diary begins with murder
and ends in the year of my birth
the year of the dragon and other endangered species,
each page a maiden voyage -
the whole thing bound and zipped in sky blue vinyl
like the body bagged after the soul's great escape.

       by Jane Williams

Jane Williams lives in Hobart, Tasmania. Her poems have been widely published since the early 1990's in Australian literary journals and newspapers. She was an editor of the Australian poetry journal ars poetica in the mid 1990s. Jane has conducted creative writing workshops in secondary schools, for people with psychiatric disabilities and for the general public. She has held Writers' Residencies at the Varuna Writers' Centre, the Booranga Writers' Centre and within the Victorian Education System, and has been a guest poet at the Melbourne Writers' Festival and the Tasmanian Writers' Festival. Jane has received financial support for editing and writing poetry through Arts Victoria grants.

Her first collection of poems outside temple boundaries (Five Islands Press 1998) received the FAW Anne Elder Award. Jane's other awards include the 2005 DJ O'Hearn Memorial Fellowship. Her next collection of poems the last tourist is due out by Five Islands Press in March 2006 when she will be writer in residence at the Australia Centre, University of Melbourne.