Second Half First
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72 In 2013, I wrote about the experience of this diagnosis, and the women doctors who treated me, and the huge strides that have been taken in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer for which we should be grateful. Good Weekend, 6 April 2013. www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/the-harsh-light-of-day-20130405-2h231.html
73 I have written elsewhere of the impact on my writing of Pauline’s question and David’s death. See ‘The Informed Imagination’, Meanjin, Vol. 74, No. 2, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, June 2015.
74 Virginia Woolf, Diary, Vol. 3, September 1926, p. 112. My italics.
75 Elizabeth Bishop, ‘Three Valentines’, Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose and Letters, Library of America, 2008, p. 195. I have made a different use of this phrase than she made in the poem. I think, and hope, she would forgive me.
76 www.omieartists.com/about/about-us/collections/
77 The Crocodile Awards for PNG writers, established in 2010, has been an important spur to the resurgence of local writing. I have reviewed two of the annual Crocodile anthologies for the Australian. These reviews can be found on www.drusillamodjeska.com/other-writing/. Gary Juffa, writer and governor of Oro, makes his first appearance in the 2014 anthology. There’s been a groundswell of support for Juffa, as well as disappointment that he hasn’t achieved more; there have also been moves against him by those who stand to lose from his protection of the forests and land.
78 SEAM – Sustain Education Art Melanesia – has a website, built for us pro bono, by Involved in Melbourne. www.seamfund.org
79 http://www.seamfund.org/our-advisors/. There’s a photo of Martha in the water with the children at Jebo village.
80 The transcript of an interview I did with John Wesley Vaso in 2007 can be found on my website: www.drusillamodjeska.com/downloads/DrusillaModjeska-JohnWesleyVason.pdf
81 You can read this magnificent poem, and a whole lot more besides, in Albert Wendt (ed.), Nuanua: Pacific Writing in English since 1980, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1995.
82 Janet Malcolm, ‘Forty-one false starts’, 1994, in Forty-one False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2013, p. 13.
83 Helen Mueller shows at the Brenda May Gallery, Danks Street, Waterloo, Sydney. While I’ve been writing this book, she has had two exhibitions and appeared in several group shows, there and in other galleries. www.brendamaygallery.com.au/artworks.php?artistID=89-Helen-Mueller. In 2015 ‘earthen ware’ was exhibited at both Brenda May Gallery and at the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award, Hazelhurst Gallery.
84 Alison Lester made this comment for SEAM’s website. You can see photos there of the day and of the children’s work, and the books we made: www.seamfund.org/news-and-updates.
85 I interviewed the founder of Buk bilong Pikinini for Meanjin, Vol. 72, No. 1, March 2013. The interview can also be found at www.drusillamodjeska.com/downloads/DrusillaModjeska-BukbilongPikinini.pdf
86 KTF (Kokoda Track Foundation). To read about KTF and its programmes in sustainable education, health, livelihood and leadership, see www.ktf.ngo/
87 The first quotation is from Unseen Rain: Quatrains of Rumi, translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks, Shambhala Publications, Massachusetts, 1986, p. 18. The second is from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, HarperCollins, Sydney, 1995, p. 36.
88 Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, first published 1929. Letter 4.
Acknowledgements
This book is published with thanks to friends and family and all whom I’ve loved, and known, and worked beside.
Since the first publication of this book in October 2015, SEAM has made major advances, thanks to the generosity of readers and writers. A book house is in place at Tainabuna village in the fjords of Cape Nelson.
Six more books have been made with the teachers and children.
Through the generosity of a donor, there is now a PNG graduate project co-ordinator to develop and extend, monitor and evaluate the roll-out of Wanskul.
SEAM thanks them all.
If you would like to support SEAM’s work, you can donate at
www.seamfund.org
Drusilla Modjeska is one of Australia’s most acclaimed writers. Her books include the award-winning memoir of her mother, Poppy; The Orchard and Stravinsky’s Lunch. Her first novel, The Mountain, was shortlisted for the 2013 Miles Franklin Award. Second Half First was shortlisted for the Kibble Award, the Victorian Premier’s Award and the ALS Gold Medal Award. Drusilla co-founded SEAM Fund – Sustained Education Art Melanesia – in 2011, which supports community-based projects in Papua New Guinea. She lives in Sydney.
Also by Drusilla Modjeska
Non-fiction
Exiles at Home: Australian women writers 1925−45
Inner Cities: Australian women’s memory of place
Poppy
The Orchard Secrets (with Robert Dessaix and Amanda Lohrey)
Stravinsky’s Lunch
Timepieces
Fiction
The Mountain
Edited
The Poems of Lesbia Harford
Sisters
The Best Australian Essays 2006
The Best Australian Essays 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Penguin Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 2.0
Second Half First
9780857989802
First published by Knopf in 2015
This edition published by Vintage in 2016
Copyright © Drusilla Modjeska, 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A Vintage book
Published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Modjeska, Drusilla, author
Second half first/Drusilla Modjeska
ISBN 978 0 85798 980 2 (ebook)
Modjeska, Drusilla
Women authors, Australian – 20th century – Biography
Authors, Australian – 20th century – Biography
A823.3
Cover images: ‘Citrus’ by Pierre Joseph Redouté, courtesy of the New York Public Library
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