Deiter in the 60's

Title of Work: Deiter in the 60's. Reference: Thompson, J. (2006). Deiter in the 60's. In D. Gilbey & D. Motion (Eds.), fourWseventeen: New poetry and prose (p. 127). Wagga Wagga, NSW: fourWpress. 0-9586759-3-7Research Background Poetry. This poem was written at a time when the Howard government were privatising many of the national institutions in order to generate a healthy budget surplus. Public outcry erupted over the sale of Telstra and plans were made to privatise the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme. As a child of the sixties, and the daughter of a filtration engineer, I recalled a family holiday to the Tumut Turbine to inspect this marvel of Australian engineering. The Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric scheme was a national icon that demonstrated that as a nation we could overcome the problems of a dry continent, harness the rivers, accomplish ambitious public works programs with a multicultural migrant workforce and move into the future with confidence. My life intersected with the Snowy Scheme in a number of ways, in addition to listening to the souvenir LP 'Snowy River Roll' my best friend was a Norwegian boy who migrated with his family so that his father could work on the Scheme. Research Contribution All creative work makes an original contribution to knowledge in that it is the synthesis of memory, experience, language, written text, images, form and expression. Multiculturalism can be a faceless political policy ' it remains the work of the artist to humanise the terminology, to unpick the rhetoric of national icons and translate the experiences of the era into tangible images, emotions and cross cultural connections. In some cases the policy and rhetoric obfuscates the complexity of the lived experience.Research Significance Four W is one of the few literary anthologies that have survived to publish both prose and poetry for a national audience. Submissions are blind reviewed by a panel of writers and only a small numberof hundreds of poems and short stories received are published. The journal is supported by the NSW Ministry for the Arts, The Australia Council for the Arts and Charles Sturt University. Publication in a peer reviewed literary journal of this standard and longevity is a significant outcome.As part of the Charles Sturt University Course Plan, staff is encouraged to 'consolidate the profile of disciplines and fields of study in order to improve the depth of staffing and resources.' Creative arts practice, as a research and teaching strength of my professional profile, is important to the teaching of literacy and literature subjects within the School of Education. It is important to teach writing skills from the perspective of a practitioner.