“Marrickville” by Louise Carter [Introduced by Thomas Moody]

With the directness of paint-thinner, Louise Carter’s “Marrickville” strips away at the euphemisms and self-told fictions a young poet must decorate her life with to sustain her vocation. A share house is “a glorified squat for people / who don’t want to pay full rent”. The poem takes its name from a historically working-class neighborhood in Sydney’s inner-west, and Carter’s sharp eye and the precision of her phrasing, in turns frank and humorous, brilliantly capture the ridiculous circumstances (if all too common) that early-stage gentrification can present: “We’re a generation of ideological orphans / building Zion in Marrickville, our dyed hair a symbol / of our kinship – while the original residents, the old-school / Greek immigrants, gaze bewildered from their porches / as hordes of us jog past them of a morning, / farting smugness.” The poem then turns inwards, the speaker, like many poets at various stages of their lives, unable to mount a defense for continuing to pursue her vocation, instead, she wonders if it might be more judicious to “swallow your insolence, move back to the suburbs and give birth / in front of the TV.” It is this balance Carter finds in her candidness, never excessive, sometimes enlivened with a splash of irony, that gives “Marrickville” its power.

Louise Carter lives on Gadigal land (Sydney). Her poetry has appeared in Meanjin, Best Australian Poems, Westerly, Cordite and other publications. Her first collection of poems, Golden Repair (2023) was published this month by Giramando.

Marrickville

It’s been three weeks since I cleaned the bathroom


and it hasn’t been cleaned since. But that’s what you get


in a share house – a glorified squat for people


who don’t want to pay full rent but dress it up


as ‘community minded’ – a place where conversations


about the fairest division of the gas bill take place


over the compost bin. You could say, hopeful of heart,


that it’s a family, which it is – dysfunctional –


the air seething with PMT, all of us rolling


out yoga mats to the sound of the kettle boiling,


the fridge stocked with kale and coconut water


but never meat. We’re a generation of ideological orphans


building Zion in Marrickville, our dyed hair a symbol


of our kinship – while the original residents, the old-school


Greek immigrants, gaze bewildered from their porches


as hordes of us jog past them of a morning,


farting smugness. I’m so far from home,


from the buzz-cut lawns and yipping dogs, from kitchens


with microwaves and African violets softly dying


beside disinfected sinks. These days I take comfort


in YouTube and weed on nights where the urge


to give up on this poetry caper becomes overwhelming –


the fear that there’s nothing you can do to avoid


becoming your mother so you might as well swallow


your insolence, move back to the suburbs and give birth


in front of the TV. These days I force my focus


onto whatever the present moment happens to reveal –


organic toothpaste, bowls caked with chia seeds,


my own face glimpsed in the mirror like seeing


a celebrity in a cafe – the intimate recognition


of a stranger in this, the mediocre immediate.

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