Three Poems

Poetry by Ouyang Yu

Normal People, by William Darkdrac. Copyright/courtesy the artist.

I con fess you have a problem

Afterwards, you made an entry at 11.24am, in your working journal, as follows,

You confess you have a problem. Your problem is that you ARE reluctant to tell a straight story. Your problem is you have no idea who wants to hear what story. You do know, though, that people are generally interested in stories of violence, love, sex, and all three in one. You do know, too, people have set standards, a set of standards, a set of set standards, to judge the writing you produce. Characterisation. Gripping plot. Vivid details. All that shit that the judges' mind is clogged up with, forever and a day. Life is nothing like that, you say. You have days and days in which nothing much happens and when something happens nothing much is worth writing about. If John, your friend, says there isn't much to write about in Australia, he may be right, exactly why people go overseas to escape from the tedium and boredom they have to live with much of the time per year. Now that you can't go anywhere else, deep in Covid shit, you live a hundred days like you've only lived one day and a year is nothing but a year of long weekends. When everything drops to the level of zeroes, story zero, character zero, people met zero, books read zero, and the only thing that is not zero is your memory, how can you get the lie of it? Oh, the word 'migrant.' I think DMW said something memorable although he later removed it by way of self-censorship, something he was very much into towards the end of his life.

One Should

Always know when to die. To live a thousand years is a wish, fancy enough to count as an image, I mean an imagination. Li Bai says:人生不满百, 常怀千岁忧. Now, follow me: Ren sheng bu man bai, chang huai qian sui you. You think I’m giving you a free lesson in Mandarin? You can have it now and pay later. Guaranteed. You want to know what it means? It means, literally, you live a life of less than one hundred years but you have a worry of a thousand years. I have neither. I live less than 100 and I worry less than 100. I thought of dying this arvo after I came back from shopping at Westfield Shopping Centre. I thought of the right time to die. Why live to a hundred years like an lc, a living corpse? How about tomorrow? How about tomorrow? How about yes, today?

But I got 2 likes for something posted on IG that I had deliberately photographed at WSC: 0%

You write too much

Do you know the world has not enough room to swing your writing cat in? Why bother writing so much that your own writing doesn’t recognise you? If you mean to get everyone to publish you, you know how many people you’ll keep busy working for how many decades? Write, if you really want to, in a way so that no one knows, not even you yourself, how much you’ve written, like you are having a mental problem, while bearing this in mind: If you live only one life, and are only one person, write, too, only one book, to make your aloneness worth it alone

Ouyang Yu

Ouyang Yu is an award-winning poet and novelist. His first novel, The Eastern Slope Chronicle, won the 2004 South Australian Festival Award for Innovation in Writing. His third novel, The English Class, won the 2011 NSW Premier's Award, and his 14th collection of poetry, Terminally Poetic (2020), won the Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Book in the 2021 Queensland Literary Awards.

He was shortlisted for the Writer’s Prize in the 2021 Melbourne Prize for Literature and won the Fellowship from Creative Australia in late 2021 for writing a documentary novel, now complete in three volumes. And his eighth novel, All the Rivers Run South, was published in December 2023 by Puncher & Wattmann, which is also publishing his ninth novel, The Sun at Eight or Nine in mid-2025, and his first collection of short stories, The White Cockatoo Flowers, is out in early 2024 with Transit Lounge Publishing.

William Darkdrac

William Darkdrac is a visual artist specializing in the airbrush technique, whose work focuses on exploring light as a metaphor for spirituality and human connection. His Normal People series features ethereal human figures radiating luminosity, set against contemporary urban landscapes. These scenes, often framed by moving cars, nighttime skies, and glowing reflections, capture a contrast between the mundanity of urban spaces and the transcendence of the intangible.

William's technical approach combines the meticulous detail of airbrushing with an artistic sensibility that prioritizes atmosphere and emotion. His ability to play with color, shadows, and texture creates images that seem to hover between reality and imagination, evoking a sense of mystery and nostalgia. The luminous figures that dominate his compositions not only serve as visual focal points but also symbolize hope, introspection, and humanity amidst the chaos of modern life.

Inspired by the dynamics of urban living, human connections, and the symbolism of light, William seeks to convey a universal message that resonates with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. Each piece invites the viewer to pause, contemplate, and reflect on the interaction between technology, nature, and the spiritual essence of individuals in an increasingly fast-paced world.