Heather Sladdin has a BA in English, concentration in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, a Graduate Diploma in Arts from Adelaide University and has spent four years researching towards a Masters Degree in Professional Writing where the topic of the thesis was ‘The Relationship between Writers and Editors; Perspectives and Perceptions’.
At UniSA Heather has tutored in Professional Writing, been a Guest Lecturer in ‘Professional and Technical Writing’, and currently tutors to Business students in ‘Communication and the Media’.
Since 1979, Heather has published articles and poetry in numerous literary magazines including Entropy, Womentropy, Tarantella, Australian Multicultural Arts Review, Stet: Australian Writers and Writing, Crystal, Connections ’80, Picador New Writing 4, Opinion, Studio, Quadrant, Transfer/40, Womanspeak, Words and Visions and Friendly Street Poetry Readers 6, 7, 15, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25.
In 1992, she was the founding Editor of ‘Stet: Australian Writers and Writing’ and ‘The Naked Pomegranate; Collected Women’s Writing’.
From 1998 to 1999 Heather was a Consulting Editor to ‘SideWaLK‘: A journal of Poetics and Poetry. She also co-edited ‘Flow’ Number 25 Friendly Street Poetry Reader.
Heather has been a member of the South Australian Writers’ Centre since 1983.
Chinatown
(Wind-chimes)
the brass calli-
graphy of
wind-
chime glistens gold
of silk trees woven
on river banks
and running
across the breast of
a chinese girl
climbing
Washing-
ton street in
a petrified cloud hung
in a gallery
of neon pagodas
cement and glass
the dancing letters
let
the wind sing of
the slippery wet of empty
fish crates
wilted chard and
faces brown and wrinkled
like the ginseng root
From Friendly Street No. 6
A Soldier’s Gift
I.
in the foxhole
Gallipoli mud
oozed on his boot
he cradled himself in canvas
numbed
blue eyes
in the half-light
fingers nimble forgetting triggers
putting pieces together
imagining Almira
and the boy
to make a box
too small for a dead rat
big enough
for a bleeding heart
he whittled at the piece
of salty pine
deserted by the tide
he knew the blunting of his knife
might cost him his life
it seemed almost spent
he saw her smile
felt the satin curve
of the white shell
its belly
spiralled into itself
mother
of pearl
he chipped away
collecting fragments of her
night after night
each piece a memory
placed painfully to form a petal
then a flower with leaves
a garden of silver lights
to cover the sombre pine
that the tiny coffin may live
a memory in the mother
like a pearl to shine in the moonlight
II.
the boy hid behind
the blue skirt
his arms clung
to her left thigh
she didn’t notice him there
her body was shocked
feeling too many things
all at once
her eyes were a desert
receiving the first rain
there were many people
shoving pushing shouting laughing crying
in some other place outside her
the ship cast a shadow on the dock
the slouch hat
cast a shadow on his eyes
thunder and lightning was her body
waiting
for his sunshine
the glass belljar of fear
broke at his voice
her name Almira
her soul eased into itself
as from a dream
when his arms enclosed her
suddenly she was real
From Friendly Street No. 15
the white stallion
a rusty field
in the shadow of cloud
and one white stallion
his mane teased upwards
by electricity and the wind
galloping
rearing up
on hind legs
his hooves scratch
at the horizon
trying to enter
the invisible
From Friendly Street No. 25