Bermagui artist David Campbell and Bermagui poet Dr Ed Southorn. Photos: Marion Williams.
A shared appreciation of nature, and the landscapes of the Bega Valley in particular, led to an unlikely collaboration between a poet and an artist in Bermagui.
Some of Dr Ed Southorn’s poems were inspired by David Campbell’s paintings. Likewise, Mr Campbell painted some of his works after reading Dr Southorn’s poetry.
They met in 2024 at the launch of Dr Southorn’s first poetry book Pareidolia. Pareidolia refers to the phenomenon of people seeing faces in rocks or meaningful shapes in clouds.
“That is the kind of thing I paint and am attracted to,” Mr Campbell said. “That was the first meeting of minds if you like and the relationship developed from there.”
His painting of the same name sold just days before the launch of Dr Southorn’s second poetry book Sea Lake Mountain on 6 June.
Another twist in their relationship is that Mr Campbell had struggled with poetry all his life. Dr Southorn’s poems changed that.
“He has made both poetry and the word much more accessible to me,” Mr Campbell said. “I like the way his poems resonate at a human level and a nature level.”
Yet Dr Southorn is an accomplished poet. In February, his work was one of 30 shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize, one of Australia’s most prestigious. Another was one of 50 selected for the Liquid Amber Poetry Prize Anthology 2024.
Dr Southorn has been writing his entire life. His first poem was published while he was at high school.
Those who arrived early for the book launch were served drinks and nibbles at The Dissenters Lounge.
Poetry was no way to earn a living though, so he turned to journalism.
“Back in the day it wasn’t hard to get a job in journalism,” he said. “I had decided I wanted to work my way along the coast because I was a surfer.”
Over his career, he worked as a news reporter for 32 mastheads from the Courier Mail in Brisbane and Melbourne’s Herald Sun to country papers such as the Gascoyne Telegraph in Carnarvon.
Dr Southorn found time to complete his master’s degree with a thesis on the history of surfing from pre-Captain Cook Hawaii to the “shortboard revolution” in 1967. The thesis for his doctorate was on “contested space” which followed the four-year battle over an unwanted luxury resort development on an unspoilt spit on the Gold Coast.
His lifelong love of writing poetry was unleashed some 11 years ago when he retired from the frenetic world of journalism. Teaching journalism at a Queensland university gave him time to pursue poetry.
Another enduring love was realised when the opportunity arose in 2021 to move permanently from the Gold Coast to the Bermagui property he had purchased in 2013.
“I first came here in the 1970s and never forgot it. Whether you’re up this north end or down in Eden, it is such an incredible landscape,” Dr Southorn said. “There are certain landmarks, rocks, mountains and beaches that I felt I had to write about. Local people who read them know that is the place I’m writing about. It really resonates with them.”
Bermagui poet Dr Kai Jensen speaking about Dr Southorn’s poetry at the book launch.
Mr Campbell said the universal connection between his paintings and Mr Southorn’s poem was the theme of nature driving us.
One shared landmark was the Illawarra beach of Werri. Between the 1920s and 1990s there were four attempts to build a concrete tunnel so a lake could empty into the sea. Each time the ocean filled the tunnel with sand.
“Both the poem and the painting are responding to man’s folly,” Mr Campbell said. “We both have a great interest in the way humans construct expensive infrastructure to control nature and nature turns around and destroys it. That folly continues today.”
Bermagui’s Dissenters Lounge was packed for the book launch. Some had to stand outside, craning their necks to hear the speakers and poetry readings.
One speaker was another local poet, Kai Jensen. He has a PhD in poetry and has virtually memorised all of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
He said Dr Southorn’s poems were a mix of down-to-earth moments based on his own life experiences and those that alluded to history, current events and places.
“They bear re-reading. You are seeing it through a lively mind,” Mr Jensen said. “His poem about the wooden fishing boat Volition that was wrecked last year is an allegory to a way of life.”
The cross-pollination between Dr Southorn and Mr Campbell has resulted in something greater than the sum of its parts.
Dr Southorn will speak at the South Coast Readers and Writers Festival in Thirroul in July and at Tathra’s Headland Writers Festival in October.
