Pioneer Poet is published

 
• The poet from Pioneer, Tim Slade.

• The poet from Pioneer, Tim Slade.

By Tony Scott,
MAY 26, 2021

If you’ve been to the Weldborough Pub lately, you might have noticed a poem on the wall. 

It’s a haunting story about a vision of a Thylacine, written by Pioneer poet, Tim Slade.

Tim’s poems have also appeared in publications like The Weekend Australian, The Koori Mail and the Australian Poetry Anthology.

Former Poet Laureate of Colorado, David Mason, has described him as, ‘a real poet who honours his island home with the sensitivity and sense of his attention.’

Originally from Hobart’s industrial suburb of Lutana, where his father was a clerk at the Zinc Works, Tim moved to Pioneer in 2009.

He made the move after his dreams of becoming a teacher were cut short by a diagnosis of multiple chronic auto-immune illnesses.

In Pioneer, he found what he believed to be ‘Tasmania’s cheapest house’, but it came with the cost of lead contaminated drinking water.

This led to Tim devoting years to campaigning for safe drinking water for the town’s residents and water policy reforms.

These efforts and other connections Tim forged after coming to Pioneer, have enabled him to get to know the community of Pioneer and surrounds well.

The region’s people, places and stories have inspired many of his poems, and these, with others, have now been brought together in a book, called The Walnut Tree.

The Walnut Tree’s publisher is another Tasmanian, Bright South, founded by, Daniela Brozek, who also has connections to the North-East.

Her grandparents, Marc and Mary Johnson, farmed at Waterhouse, before retiring to Bridport.

Marc was fascinated by Tasmania’s history and well informed about the North East’s past.

“Sometimes my grandparents would leave the farm for a day, and load us all into their orange Datsun. 

“We’d rocket along the rugged gravel roads out the back of Mount Horror, or Derby, or around Mount Cameron, looking for the sites of former settlements, Chinese mining camps, or broken down infrastructure buried in the scrub.

“This is what drew me to Tim’s poems. 

“He tells the hidden stories of the North-East’s, and Tasmania’s, places and people; and of its animals, waterways, and even vehicles, be they mountain bikes or Toranas (sadly not Datsuns).”

The Walnut Tree contains 45 poems about everything – there are tender words celebrating family and friends, and about local characters such as ‘Skeet, The Woodman’.

A poem about cycling around Derby on holiday contrasts with another about the characters of Pioneer and their postie bikes.

There are also poems about Risdon Cove and the Bridgewater Jerry, and there is a lot of tongue-in-cheek – a poem called ‘The Green Religion’ is about golf … or is it?

Sometimes the poems might inspire the reader to do a double-take. It is poetry that you can treat like sudoku – it will keep you on your toes puzzling it out – it’s poetry to treat as fun, even when it is deadly serious (yes, sometimes it is).

It’s also poetry that speaks to an often hidden demographic – the boys and young men of Tasmania, and their experiences, their loves, games, and losses.

If you would like to find out more and hear Tim read from The Walnut Tree, well known writer Pete Hay will be launching it at Petrarch’s bookshop, in Launceston, on the Thursday May 27.

The book will be for sale around the North-East soon afterwards, or more details are available from Bright South.