between wind and water (in a vulnerable place)

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between wind and water, is to be in a vulnerable place, the place where people and planet are. When industrial wind arrives in the neighbourhood, some locals find that living with their new neighbour has brought a whirlwind of troubles. Their health and that of the community take a nosedive. Their complaints are filed into obscurity, their stories dismissed and they belittled. What sort of world do we want? We ask how can we have a better world if people and planet are not equally respected?

These poems speak the stories of people who have been denied a voice. A local story told with a global perspective … these are small fragments of a very complex story, an attempt to distil the experiences of some people in small rural locations across the world.

At the heart of between wind and water is an intimate portrayal of the vulnerable place people and planet find themselves. When home no longer feels safe as houses, when health has so deteriorated, and the local community divided and toxic, people leave their homes and the lives they have known.

between wind and water, a series of poems, tells the stories of people who, after a windfarm is built in their neighbourhood, find that they begin to experience problems: among others sleep disruption, headaches, nausea, anxiety. They complain to the Company, local council, and government. Lost in the labyrinth of doublespeak and duplicity, anxiety, disillusionment and a sense of abandonment grow. These poems tell of their experience and try to make sense of what is happening.

The broader ideological framework that these stories are set in: the earth is being plundered; consumerism is rife; bias and zealotry on all sides are rampant. Who do you believe? Where do we go from here, when respect for people and the planet is at such a low ebb?

2018 | ISBN 9781925581591 | Paperback | 230 x 190 mm | 96 pp

berni m janssen

2018 | ISBN 9781925581591 | Paperback | 230 x 190 mm | 96 pp

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Endorsements

Rejoice! berni janssen's new book! This book is easy to love: its rugged, soft, deft, exact forms. Action is embedded in things; politics is stitched into the wind. Set against the bamboozle clatter of corpspeak and co-option. It's a beautifully grounded book and it's going to make trouble.

—Chris Mansell, Poet and Publisher

In a constant eddy of wind and water, janssen unspools a blistering attack on corporate Australia's public manipulations, elisions of truth and scientific spinning. Her tools, a menagerie of wind turbines and the humans living amongst them - Dan, Cassandra, Charles, Una, and others. These poems fashion an epic grid that electrifies you, big energy at its absolute finest.

—Kent MacCarter, Poet and Managing Editor, Cordite Poetry Review

A heady consciousness ride through the changing synergies of mind body space in the world, be it natural, or constructed. One of Australian’s treasures, berni janssen, a pioneering sound poet, is fully focused on the auditory as a means of experiencing the world. The voice of berni is loud and clear. She takes us with her into the auditory world as it is changing and asks us to reconsider "the strange echo chamber we live in."

—Dr Ros Bandt, International Environmental Sound Artist

There is no doubt in my mind that berni.m.janssen is a cultural icon for our people. The punter on the street might give me sideways glances for such a proposition, but it is only because they don’t know – not yet. But they will. You just can’t hide Janssen forever – she rings too loud. At the heart of between, wind and water resides a struggle that has been both a personal health battle and a communal fight to be heard. The text delineates battle lines around wind turbines in regional Victoria, and I am reminded that the conflict between the overlords and the proletariat is universal and unending. It will never cease: What is this wheel in which we turn?

—James Hullick, Musician, Sound Artist, Artistic Director, JOLT Arts, aka )-(u||!c|<

Reviews

FIVE STAR REVIEW. berni m janssen through an extraordinary series of poems that are both riveting and deeply saddening shares the stories of the people living in an idyllic country area into which wind turbines are erected. The world of nature, birds, trees, flowers as well as wind, water and dust come to life, while the world of those subjected to the body-grinding low-pitched sounds through so many sleepless nights fall apart. berni m janssen is a highly respected performance poet and her starkly visual and visceral poems will leave audiences writhing in disbelief.
—bookshout
What an extraordinary book! This is, to my knowledge, the first book-length poetical response to the contentiously medical impact of wind turbines: “between wind and water” (with the subtitle “in a vulnerable place”) could be a poet’s rendering of the expression “between a rock and a hard place”; that is, being in a difficult situation...

As Lawrence Ferlinghetti said (himself a poet and editor at City Lights Books), the “function of the independent press (besides being essentially dissident) is still to discover, to find the new voices and give voice to them”. Spinifex continues this tradition, and janssen continues the tradition of some of Australia’s best contemporary poets, like joanne burns, Ania Walwicz, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Mark Young, Chris Edwards, John Kinsella, Gig Ryan, Jordie Albiston, Ken Bolton, Michael Farrell, Chris Mann (recently deceased), Francesca Jurate Sasnaitis, Cecilia White and so many others.

Read the full review here
—Javant Biarujia, Live Encounters
between wind and water (in a vulnerable place) is approximately eighty pages of activism in poetic form. The emotional intensity is high throughout and its underpinnings fairly naked. After or while reading this book you can’t help wanting to march vigorously in a demonstration or organise a protest.
Read the full review: https://plumwoodmountain.com/jane-joritz-nakagawa-reviews-between-wind-and-water-by-berni-m-janssen-ada-unseen-by-frances-presley-and-fate-news-by-norma-cole/
—Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, Plumwood Mountain