Leonard lifts his head from piles of paper     although his press is still pushing print, he senses an emptiness     rushes-to-her-room     calls her name     the ms is on her desk     pen on it     ink splashed over her industry     he-rushes-upstairs     Virginia     Virginia     the house echoes Ginia     Ginia     as each room is inspected      dread      begins to join panic   Virginia   Virginia     catching sight of the open door     he-rushes-out    circles the garden and empty shed     checks the car     echoes their endless mocking    Ginia     Ginia     the river’s edge shines serenely

as if smiling 
				searching for a sign 
						mind screaming 
			stumbles
							quickly     quickly     quickly 
				from the brink 
									gate latch 
						now closed 
the panting of her spaniel 

Noticing Leonard’s distraught condition, his gardener asks,     Are you all right sir?     Mrs Woolf has just returned from her walk.   Leonard’s face changes.     Of course!     Straightening, he strides back into the house.

tonight     no     new star 

Mrs Dalloway 
returns to the party 

silver shallows 
the hidden shades 
of river stones 

Author’s note: Virginia Woolf. 1925. Mrs Dalloway.

—Long-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #3

Hazel Hall

is a widely published Canberra poet, international judge of Japanese short forms, and musicologist who enjoys collaborating with other artists. She founded and coordinated the ekphrastic poetry group School of Music Poets from 2012 to 2017, and directed the Poetry at Manning Clark House series of readings from 2018 to 2022. Her writing ranges from short Japanese forms to free verse, hybrids, and prose poetry.

Hazel’s most recent published collections include:

• a chapbook of collected sonnets and hybrids, A Hint of Rosemary (Interactive Publications, 2024);
  
  
• two chapbooks in the Picaro Poets series published by Ginninderra Press: Breathe In, Breathe Out (2023), and Severed Web (2020), the latter with late artist Deborah Faeryglen;
  
  
• a radio play in 15 linked sonnets, Please Add Your Signature and Date it Here: A Verse Drama (Litoria Press, 2021);
  
  
• a full-length collection of tanka by Hazel Hall in collaboration with six other poets and illustrated by the late Parkinson’s artist Robert Tingey, Moonlight over the Siding (Interactive Press, 2018);
  
  
• a chapbook with haiku by Hazel Hall and tai chi by Angelina Egan, Step By Step (Ginninderra Press, Picaro Poets series, 2018); and
  
  
• Eggshell Sky with calligraphers Angela Hillier, Narelle Jones, and artists with Parkinson’s (2017).
  
  

Hazel holds a PhD from Monash University.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Ghosts of Gershwin, cheribun story by Hazel Hall in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 25, September 2024), long-listed Finalist in MacQ’s second Cheribun Challenge

⚡ The Miner’s Wife, sonka (sonnet + tanka) by Hazel Hall in Issue 21 of MacQ (January 2024)

⚡ A Question of Faith, Hazel’s tanka prose poem which also includes a pair of senryu and a cherita variation; MacQ publisher Clare MacQueen dubbed the piece “a heavenly hybrid” and selected it as one of eight Finalists in “The Question of Questions” Ekphrastic Writing Challenge (Issue 15, September 2022).

⚡ Culture Shock, Hazel’s cheribun in Issue 12 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (March 2022); Third Place Winner of MacQ’s first Cheribun Challenge

⚡ See MacQ’s Index of Contributors for half-a-dozen additional hybrid poems by Hazel Hall.