Anne Kellas

Anne Kellas’s third collection – The White Room Poems (Walleah Press, 2015) – was shortlisted for the Margaret Scott Prize in the 2017 Tasmanian Premier’s Literary awards. Written with the support of an Australia Council grant, it also received a Blue Giraffe Press poetry award. Isolated States, supported by an Arts Tasmania grant, was published by Tim Thorne’s Cornford Press (2001), while Poems from Mt Moono (1989) was published in South Africa. The Netted Air appeared in early 2018 in Ginninderra’s Picaro Poets series. Anne’s 2017 Masters by research degree drew on her work in youth studies (as Anne Hugo) and covers similar territory to The White Room Poems.

'Travelling To My Mother Last Century' by Anne Kellas | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 18 April 2018

I step in a taxi, again. It takes me there fast,cutting the white dotted lines of highwayinto miles of silence. Back to my mother in the ship or the plane, reversing my stepsto see her curving herself into her pillowsher red walls, her eyes not seeing me but a blur.My mother calls to me from her place far away in deep mind, where she has built a tower of knowing.From her far tower, she can see the ... (read more)

'The Finding' by Anne Kellas | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 18 April 2018

Here, leafing through stone-quiet papers,I freeze in the 8 am birdsong morning.No fog-horn traffic noise or school-song children today,just daffodils pinned to spiked leavesand sea light far away. Anne Kellas ... (read more)

'As You Left Home One Winter's Night' by Anne Kellas | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 18 April 2018

It’s dawn but it’s dark.Winter. Your Winterreisebegins. But you don’t want to wake. I tried to wake you but you wouldn’t, then you would.If I knew then what I know now.But there was the ticket, the passport. Your father’s ready, names and numbers, labels on the luggage.The car is idling outside.It’s dawn but dark. It’s winter here but summer where you’re going.I’ve bought you ... (read more)

'Probably' by Anne Kellas | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 18 April 2018

I’ll go that way, by sea,in a ship that sails at night,dropping life-boats,like lifts down lift shafts,onto storm seas below. Anne Kellas ... (read more)

'How To Get Rid Of The Layer Of Snow' by Anne Kellas | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 18 April 2018

‘Ah, that layer of snow of which you tell me! For a longtime I too had it! But I turned it into the tablecloth mywife spread over our – pleasantly round – table in orderto host ... so many incarnations of mud!’ Paul Celan (in an unsent letter to Rene Char, cited in Selections: Paul Celan, ... (read more)