About, alone and away – stories of love

LOCAL poet Matt Hetherington will launch his new collection, About Alone Away, at M|Arts on April 10.

Described by the publisher as an exploration of love, loss and self-examination, Hetherington says the collection is deeply personal.

“The book is dedicated to my daughter and all daughters,” he said.

“It’s about me loving women and being loved by them.

“Parts of it are more bitter and sour and love going wrong, but there’s plenty of joyous and celebratory stuff, which are much harder to write.”

The Murwillumbah poet, known for his raw and spare verse, said About Alone Away is his most accessible work yet.

“I decided I didn’t have enough love in my life,” Hetherington said.

“I’ve never written much about the past, but I started with this book. Maybe it’s what you do when you get old.

“There’s my first kiss, the first time I had sex, my first girlfriend, which goes back a long time, and I’ve never done anything like that before.

“It’s not nostalgia exactly, but when writing love poems, you’re always teetering on the brink of sentimentality, so you just try not to fall off the cliff.”

Despite poetry’s limited commercial viability, Hetherington embraces the challenge.

“I’ve been lucky. I do some teaching, editing, DJing and other stuff,” he said.

“You can’t survive as a professional poet in Australia.

“Even the big shots of Australian poetry like Les Murray and Dorothy Porter could never survive on just poetry.

“In my early 20s, I knew I loved poetry and weird music and accepted that there was no money in either.

“Even though there’s very little money in it, I’m doing something I love, which is a beautiful thing.

“There is some smartness in there, too. It’s not just luck. You gotta learn how to live with very little money.”

In the current cost-of-living crisis, perhaps many of us could learn a thing or two from the poets about frugality, and about the complex and enduring nature of love.

About Alone Away launches during the next Poet’s Out Loud event at M|Arts on Thursday, April 10 at 6pm. Tickets are available at the door.

Visit walleahpress.com.au/Matt-Hetherington-About-Alone-Away .