Dr. Paul Monk on Poetry (Part 1): ’Red Ochre For The Moon Goddess’ and ’Wine On The Flames’

In this podcast, Nick Fabbri and Dr. Paul Monk discuss and read from two major collections of love poetry written for Paul’s muse, Rachael: Red Ochre For The Moon Goddess and Wine On The Flames. These 600+ poems document their extraordinary, long-distance relationship, which Monk calls the "culminating experience" of his life.

Key Discussion Points include:

• Poetry as Self-Expression: Monk asserts that poetry is self-expression, contrasting it with his objective writings on geopolitics and history. He views poetry as being "for the real world".
• The Catalytic Muse (Claudia): The initial "efflorescence" of his poetry was encouraged by his partner Claudia, who told him he was "a writer and a poet" and helped transition his identity away from a businessman and bureaucrat.
• The Neruda Variations: The initial cycle of poetry, The Neruda Variations, was written as a catharsis for his grief after Claudia's departure in 2007.
• The Advent of Rachael: His later love and muse, Rachael, initiated the relationship by asking for poetry, leading to a long-distance intimacy established using modern technologies.
• Metaphors of Competition: Poems often use metaphors of rivalry and risk, positioning the poet as a disadvantaged competitor (a retiarius fighting a murmillo in "Gladiator") or a daring figure (Alex Honnold free-soloing El Capitan in "Mastered Beauty").
• Myth and Muse: Classical and literary figures are invoked to frame the romance, such as Odysseus and Circe ("In the House of the Goddess"), the exiled poet Ovid ("Your Ovid"), and the lovers of Marilyn Monroe ("Marilyn's Men").
• Philosophical Poetics: Monk discusses the technical and emotional blend of his writing, as demonstrated by the feeling of being the piano played by Martha Argerich during a Rachmaninoff performance ("Martha Argerich").
• The Book's Meaning: The title Red Ochre For The Moon Goddess signifies Rachael as a seductive, primordial muse, while Wine On The Flames references the cremation of Hector in the Iliad, reflecting the heroic, yet late-life nature of the endeavour.
• Art and Reality: Poems like "Nook and Book" grapple with the fundamental question of whether their "transcendent" poetic relationship can ever be translated into a conventional cohabitational reality.

Dr Paul Monk is a poet, polymath and highly regarded Australian public intellectual. He has written an extraordinary range of books, from Sonnets to a Promiscuous Beauty (which resides in former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s library), to reflective essays on the riches of Western civilization in The West in a Nutshell, to a prescient 2005 treatise on the rise of China in Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China.