Obituaries Australia

Jordie Albiston: September 30, 1961—February 28, 2022

As news began to spread on social media of Jordie Albiston’s sudden, untimely death, one of her friends left a message on her voicemail, warning her that some despicable people were spreading false rumours of her demise. Such was the presence of Jordie in the literary community – in inverse proportion to the modest position she accorded herself – that few believed she could possibly have left us so soon.

Jord to her family, GoGo to her grandchildren, Jordie Patricia Tweddell Albiston was born on September 30, 1961, in Melbourne, the second of four children, to John Maxwell Albiston and Elisabeth Overend Tweddell. She attended Methodist Ladies’ College, then studied music (flute) at the Victorian College of the Arts, and went on to gain a doctorate in English literature from La Trobe University. She had begun writing from a very young age. The combination of her musical training and her interest in literature prepared the ground in which her special talents could grow and flourish.

Her first marriage to Michael Young resulted in the birth of their two children, Jess and Caleb. She was later married for 12 years to the poet Ian McBryde. In 2014, she married the love of her life, Andy Szikla.

Jordie learnt early on to negotiate the vagaries of the poetry world. When her first book, Nervous Arcs, was about to be published in 1995, she approached Les Murray to see if he would consider launching it. Murray asked to see the manuscript, then suggested instead that he could read some of his poems at the event, an offer which Jordie graciously declined.

As her reputation grew, she found herself widely published and anthologised. Her work was translated into several languages, and she received some of the nation’s major prizes and awards, including the Mary Gilmore Award (for Nervous Arcs), the NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry.

Her published output includes 13 poetry collections, three books of children’s poetry and a substantial handbook on poetic form. Some of her poetry drew on archival and documentary sources; two such collections – Botany Bay Document (1996) and The Hanging of Jean Lee (1998) – were adapted for music-theatre by the composer Andree Greenwell, both enjoying seasons at the Sydney Opera House and both released on CD. Others who have set her work to music include Australian composers Andrew Ford, Raffaele Marcellino, Barry McKimm, Rachel Merton and Kezia Yap, as well as Leonard Lehrman (US) and Peter Skoggard (Canada). The two documentary volumes were followed by a landmark fourth collection, The Fall (2003).

A key attribute of Jordie Albiston’s work was her exploration of the freedoms, constraints and possibilities of poetic architecture, whether traditional, experimental or, for that matter, self-imposed. She delighted in investigating and extending poetic forms (especially the sonnet), as well as inventing formal poetic structures of her own.

This was underpinned by a deep interest in mathematics and music – musical cadence, with (often) a mathematical or arithmetical template shadowing and energising the verse – as in the geometric forms in Euclid’s Dog (2017), the periodic table in Element (2019) or in the musically driven Vertigo (2007), an extended poetic cantata complete with arias, recitatives and chorus. There was also the formally and playfully remarkable verse-novel in five-line syllabic stanzas, Jack & Mollie (& Her).

Jordie’s most recent title was a collection of 15-line sonnets titled Fifteeners (2021), in which she refashions the traditional 14-liner, with meter giving way to syllabics. She herself described her poetics as “highly charged with vertigo, and doubt”.

She had survived some difficult and traumatic life experiences, and her health was compromised by several debilitating medical issues, all of which she fought bravely, but nonetheless made her life more challenging. Over the years, she gradually withdrew from readings and other events, her last public appearance being in 2019 to accept the Patrick White Award, for a writer who has been highly creative over a long period but has not necessarily received adequate recognition.

Alongside her own writing, Jordie was a mentor to many poets, both younger and older, an astute and sensitive editor of poetry, and an inspiring teacher. It was typical of her generosity that, when she prepared her successful book of exercises in poetic form, The Weekly Poem (2014), she offered it to her publisher without fee or royalty. Her talents extended beyond the literary sphere. Complementing her commitment to poetry and language was her musicianship: on flute, piano and cello. She was also a keen practitioner of the art of bell-ringing, as well as a proud and enthusiastic member of the Cloud Appreciation Society.

Jordie Albiston was a modest, unassuming person, deeply uncomfortable being in the public eye and almost self-effacing about her successes. Her family observed of her that “the one thing she lacked was a proper appreciation of her own work”. Overwhelmed that her most recent collection, Fifteeners, had won the John Bray Award in the 2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, she had been preparing to travel to Adelaide for the ceremony on March 5 when her life was tragically cut short. She died in her sleep on February 28.

She is survived by husband Andy, parents Max and Lis, siblings Helen, John and Kate, children Jess and Caleb, and their partners and children.