It seems to me that I have been writing since in the cradle — or maybe I was born with a pen in my hand. I simply loved writing. I wrote diaries, cards, letters and poems. When I reached my teenage years and early twenties I added short stories to my repertoire. They always dealt with sad and unfulfilled love. These stories were sentimental clap-trap. Thank goodness I did not write too many of them! Achieving the publication of a book was on my ‘bucket-list’, long before bucket-lists were talked about. It would be many years before my ambition was finally realised in Australia. My first book was published in Brisbane. The title was She is a Cat. It was a book of paintings of cats for which I had written interpretive poems. The genre came naturally to me and today still I love looking at a painting and allowing thoughts and feelings to roam around in my head until I can put them to paper.
Writing was also cathartic. I could pour my feelings into words, express emotions silently on neutral paper. My writings ended up in exercise books or loose-leaf bundles in a drawer. I was a cupboard writer! I was also a poet in the wilderness in the truest sense. There was no university with literature courses, no poetry society — or none that I had heard off — no mentor to critique or guide me. Finally, I picked up courage and sent a poem to the newspaper of the Northern Territory, The Territorian. It was a special poem about the town of Darwin and my feelings about my new home, This land of mine. When the editor of the paper notified me that they would publish it, I was beside myself with elation and pride. I felt I had arrived as a writer. The year was 1967. I was 33 years old. I had come out of the cupboard! It would be many years before another poem would be published. By then I had left Darwin and was living in Queensland and there were long stretches of time where my pen did not move. Children and their needs, business plus a pretty full-on life took up all my time and energy.
But slowly my head started to fill with poems again as I started to write in earnest. Eventually I would have many poems published in Literary Magazine, newspapers and anthologies. There were prizes and recognition but, most of all, there were rejection slips. I persevered, however, and now have eight published books to my name. Most of them combine art with poetry. BLOODY BASTARD BEAUTIFUL is my first book of prose.
Books by Mocco Wollert
