Hunting for Goanna with Jill McDougall Hi, Jill - welcome to the Poetry Zone. You're from Australia - so first of all - tell us where you live. At the bottom. Find South Australia in your atlas and look for the city of Adelaide. Can you see me waving to you from the hills? If I seem to have a long tail, you might be mixing me up with a kangaroo. When did you start writing? Grade 4. I wrote a poem on the back window of Miss Hoffman's Morris Minor. I thought it would be a really moving poem (ha ha) but she made me wash it off. Why do you write poetry? My first job was at a biscuit factory counting the Iced VoVoes. I kept getting the numbers muddled up so I decided I'd better find a job with no counting. Ha! I discovered too late that poetry is full of counting - beats in a line, syllables between beats, lines in a verse - (it's all Maths really). Do you write anything other than poetry? Shopping lists, birthday card greetings, autographs …. Oh, I get what you mean. I write chapter books, novels, non-fiction books, cartoons and plays. Just about anything with letters in it (except maybe alphabet soup!) What books have you written? Anna the Goanna was my first book of poetry. It's about life on an Aboriginal community in Central Australia. My father goes hunting for turkey My brother goes hunting for toys My mum and my nana Go hunting goanna But sister goes hunting for boys. Then there's Susie Blue and the Super Glue which I wrote along with some other Aussie poets. I'm a bony skeleton And you can call me Fred. I have a bony backside And a bony bony head - Two bony lips, two bony hips, And bony toes with bony tips, I have so many bony bits I might as well be dead. How long does it take to write a poem? Minutes or days or years. Some poems slide onto the page as if they've been waiting to be let out. Others are stuck fast like sesame seeds in your tooth and you have to poke and gouge at them to get them loose. Not a load of laughs at the time but it's a great feeling when you're done. What is the most famous insect that inspired you to write a poem? Ozzie the Mozzie! I'm Ozzie the mozzie Do you remember me? You donated blood this morning And you gave so generously. If I'm feeling peckish then I might drop in for tea, Let's make a date But if I'm late - Please don't wait up for me. How do you write your poems? Fun poems often have a surprise at the end so sometimes I put the ending down first. I once wrote a poem about a pr…. no, I won't spoil it. You'll have to read it yourself to discover the surprise. Don't make me go to school today, Please, anything but that! I'll tidy up my bedroom, I'll be gentle with the cat. I'll do the dishes for a week, (I'll soak the saucepans too), But please don't make me go to school - That place is like a zoo. The kids are really mean to me, They call me nasty names (Like 'legend in a lunch box') when I interrupt their games. And when they see me coming, They spread out like peanut paste, I feel like I'm some fungal growth, Some noxious toxic waste. So please don't make me go to school, I'll sulk and whine and sob, So what if I'm the Principal! I want a different job! Are you writing anything at the moment? I'm writing a bunch of food poems for a new book. It might be called Put a Cockroach in my Muesli but then again it might have a sweeter name like erm … Strawberry Jam. Do you have a web page? Yes! Please come visit me Down Under at: http://www.jillmcdougall.com.au What could schools do to improve the way poetry is taught? Fill the day with poetry! When I taught primary school, we put poems on giant posters all over the walls and read them aloud every day. We made up skipping poems and tuckshop poems and football poems and we put them on at assembly. We learnt the 3 times table to the beat of an army chant: We all know that three times one Is three because we've just begun, We all know that three times two Is six because it's always true. We all know that three times three Is nine because my mum told me … Poetry rules! Thank you, Jill. All poems in this interview are Copyright © 2007 Jill McDougall. Go back to top of page