Elsie Johnstone – författare

WHEN it came to handling the impact of COVID-19, Australia summarised the global paradox.

On one hand, it was the world''s pin-up nation for dealing with the deadly emergency, keeping cases and deaths down to a handful compared to the spiralling statistics of the US and Europe.

On the other, this approach came at a heavy mental and physical cost for its citizens, as Come On Victoria! I''m Done. outlines.

Lives were saved, but Elsie and Graeme Johnstone, in both serious and humorous form, show the frustration as the goal posts were shifted every time freedom loomed.

In a period of 20 months from March 2020 to November 2021, Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria, Australia''s second-most populous state, called six lockdowns.

The first was a botched hotel quarantine that killed more than 800 people. After that, any sudden burst, even just two or three cases, was reason enough for him to hit the button and push everybody back indoors.

Schools, businesses, services, community groups, all copped the brunt, even virus-free rural communities hundreds of kilometres from the capital city. 

There were a few exceptions, largely those sectors involving the unions that supported his government, along with racing, football and brothels.

Aggravating the situation, the national race to fix the problem morphed into a vanity contest between the six State Premiers and the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, as a line-up of inflated political egos were paraded at remorseless daily press conferences. It wasn''t all about health advice.

The states took it in turn to blame each other, while national leadership was found wanting. This was particularly so in the rollout of the ''it''s not a race'' vaccine campaign, which turned into a monumental shambles.

The finger pointing between traditional rivals Victoria and New South Wales was fired up even further by Morrison describing NSW''s test-and-trace strategy as the ''gold standard''.

In turn, Andrews blamed cases leaking into Victoria on the then NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, as well as three Sydney furniture removalists and a Bondi limousine driver.

Ultimately, on Monday October 4, Melbourne set the record that no other metropolis envied. Reaching 246 days, it took over from the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires as the city that had spent the most cumulative days under stay-at-home orders.

Yes, lives were saved, and everyone is grateful for that, but a major theme of Come On Victoria! I''m Done. is that for the innocent bystander, it was frustrating to have the goal posts moved every time freedom appeared to be on the horizon.  

You can''t confine the population to barracks for months on end and not expect burnout, frustration and anger.

The only alternative to ageing is death, and author Elsie Johnstone is old. She has a wisdom and a cynicism earned from experience. But does anybody want to benefit from her thoughts and advice? Not likely.

In this anthology of poems, she is going to tell you anyway!

Born in the 1940s, after World War 2, Elsie Johnstone is one of the Baby Boomers. The world had been through two wars and a long depression and, at last, the sun shone and there was hope. Life was simpler then in many ways, but human beings essentially don''t change. Australians mourned their dead, optimistically returned to life, and got on with living and loving. 

Elsie is part of the generation that benefitted from the post-war prosperity where the old paradigms were dismantled and a new liberated society evolved. Women came out from the home, working class children got educated, Australia became wealthy and the world became smaller.

In a delightful selection of poems, Elsie outlines how it all happened - the good and the bad.

Elsie says that Old girl - the third part of a trilogy that began with Lakes Entrance girl and then Catholic girl - is a book of "unsophisticated verse for the common folk."

"Academics might disapprove, and that''s okay," Elsie says. "But I am not aiming for academic excellence. I simply write poetry because I like to; it challenges me and I was always a sucker for a good story.

"In the wide world of words this would be the equivalent of country music. The purists disdain it but we ordinaries like a story we can relate to, one that echoes common experiences and is written with rhythm and rhyme, making it easy on the ear when read out loud.

"So call me a bush poet, a broker of unsophisticated verse for the common folk."

If you like a relatable tale, written in an entertaining and musical way, then this is a book for short spaces or spare moments. Enjoy.

Too structured to fall into the category of grunge poetry; low on literary worth, but high on story telling. I call my poetry, ''Gippsland Shabby Chic Verse''.

It''s raw, uncomplicated, tells a story in simple language that is easy to read. And most of it rhymes!

Hopefully, my poems will take my reader on an emotional journey to experience what makes beautiful Lakes Entrance and East Gippsland unique amongst places.

This is a book of collected poems of time and place, compiled in the season of the coronavirus 2020, during lockdown.

''You can take the girl out of Lakes Entrance, but you can''t take Lakes Entrance out of the girl.''

The mask has been removed and a virus has decimated the Catholic Church. Disclosures about the systemic child abuse and the criminal cover-ups have brought the institution to its knees. Will it ever recover?

This book of poems compiled in 2020, the time of the virus, documents one person''s journey through the various stages of Catholicism, from true believer to agnostic. Many of the poems are light-hearted glimpses at the absurdity of the dogma we were taught as children, others give voice to the hurt and suffering inflicted upon many helpless children at the hands of the people they trusted and admired.

Included are poems that touch on the sport and politics of our times. Religion, politics and professional sport are all based on the same premise - domination of the weak by the strong, supremacy of the institution over the individual, with a huge dose of self-interest thrown in.

My family sacrificed two men to the Catholic Church, one who went willingly and who did good work and was loved by the people he served. I am very proud of him.

The other had his future taken from him at the age of twelve years, by an evil man of the church who was protected by the institution. My brother lived on for forty angst-filled years and never resolved his pain.