Effective Living Centre

Sacred and Creative

The Effective Living Centre will host Aidan Coleman at its January Poets Corner on Monday, 23 January at 7:30 pm.

Aidan Coleman was born in Aberystwyth, Wales, in 1976 and emigrated to Australia when he was eight. His first poetry collection Avenues & Runways (Brandl & Schlesinger) was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Kenneth Slessor Prize and his poetry is featured on ABC Radio National’s Australian Poetry series, "A Pod of Poets." His poetry was recently included in the anthology Australian Poetry Since 1788. Aidan lives in Adelaide with his wife and daughter where he teaches English and co-authors a series of Shakespeare textbooks. His second collection of poems Asymmetry will be published by Brandl & Schlesinger in April.

The Sacred and Creative function within ELC, exists to promote a greater awareness and appreciation of the spiritual dimensions of life. The emphasis on creativity corresponds, in that such an awareness is only deepened by participation.

Hence we host a quarterly Poets Corner, hold meditation workshops, run an Artist in Residence program each year and regularly have forums where a guest speaker will share from both a knowledgeable and experiential back ground. There is no expected nor imposed belief system associated with Sacred and Creative events. We seek to honour where people are at and to jointly learn from that perspective.

Poets’ Corner
Poets’ Corner is a vibrant, creative and fulfilling program of ELC.
The group was formed in 2003, following the visit of Professor Mark Burrows. He inspired us by skilfully enabling us to experience the power, beauty and life-enriching qualities of poetry. He introduced many poets, including the American Mary Oliver, whose poetry many of us now treasure.

At first, we looked at the work of a particular poet, e.g. Les Murray, or poetry with a particular theme. At other meetings, we invited someone to share poetry which was special to them. There has always been time for participants to read their own poetry.

The next phase was to invite local poets to share their poetry with us. This has been a very enriching experience for both the group and the poets. Although poets have opportunities to read their poetry, they have relished the chance to talk about their life experiences, sources of inspiration and creative process. Inspired by their stories and their work, many of our group, who have never written poetry before, are now writing wonderful poems. Guest poets have included Jude Aquilina, Louise Nicholas, David Ades, Mike Ladd and Jules Koch. One poet has described Poets’ Corner as “the best gig in town”!

Poets’ Corner continues to be a very innovative ELC program, and we are now meeting 6 times a year, on the fourth Monday of alternate months, that is, January, March, May, July, September and November.

A poetry anthology called Season of a New Heart was published in 2010. For more details and how to purchase please see Home page.