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y separately published work icon Our Lady of the Fence Post selected work   poetry  
Issue Details: First known date: 2016... 2016 Our Lady of the Fence Post
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Our Lady of the Fence Post is an imaginative response to news reports of the appearance of a Marian apparition on the construction site of a memorial for victims of the Bali bombing at Coogee, Sydney, in January 2003.

'One year after 9/11, terrorists had bombed Paddy’s Irish Pub and the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali, killing 202 people, including 88 Australians. Within days of the report of the Marian apparition huge crowds started visiting the site, dubbed ‘Our Lady of the Fence Post’ by the press.

'Our Lady of the Fence Post tells the story of the ‘war on terror’, from the Bali bombing to ISIS suicide bombing in 2015, from the point of view of locals in the fictional setting of Sunshine Bay, in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: To my mother and father

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

A Review of Four Titles from UWA Publishing’s Poetry Alyson Miller , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: Editor's Desk - 2017 2017;

— Review of Our Lady of the Fence Post Jennifer Crone , 2016 selected work poetry ; Border Security Bruce Dawe , 2016 selected work poetry ; Star Struck David McCooey , 2016 selected work poetry ; Melbourne Journal : Notebooks 1998-2003 Alan Loney , 2016 selected work poetry
A Remarkable Book of Poetic Investigative Journalism/Our Lady of the Fence Post Niki Tulk , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 31 no. 2 2017; (p. 455-457)

— Review of Our Lady of the Fence Post Jennifer Crone , 2016 selected work poetry

'The work ranges wider than this terrorist event, gathering within its orbit other facets of the "war on terror" that include a 2015 ISIS suicide bombing and the 2005 Cronulla Riots that pitted Caucasian Australians against largely Lebanese immigrants, thus placing issues of domestic and racial violence against a broader backdrop of global unrest. There is also a set of Twitter excerpts from a now-defunct account by Jake Bilardi, an eighteen-year-old Melbourne man who converted to radical Islam and died in a suicide bombing in Iraq, March 2015. ("Graffiti Triptych," 26) Also, The ocean cliff's buoyant wind wantons goose-bumped skin ("Something is Lost," 46) The often lush imagery points toward the realm of wonder and divine, of fertility and the chance for change, countering the violence, racism, and sexism that threads through much of the content.' (Publication abstract)

[Review Essay] Our Lady of the Fence Post Carole Cusack , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Literature & Aesthetics , vol. 27 no. 1 2017; (p. 108-110)

'Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the contemporary world, accompanied by the (usually religious) phenomenon of pilgrimage, may be understood as an instance of the medieval manifesting in the modern. On 12 October 2002 Paddy’s Irish Bar and the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali were bombed by Islamic terrorists, an attack in which 202 people, from twenty-one countries, died. Twenty of the dead were from Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, and six were members of the Coogee Dolphins football team. In late January 2003 Coogee local Christine Cherry of the Beach Street Gallery Laundrette revealed to the media that, viewed in the afternoon sun, the fence on the headland that had been recently renamed “Dolphins Point” in honour of the dead appeared to resemble the Virgin Mary. Crowds flocked to Coogee to see the apparition (which technically was not an apparition because it was a trick of the light that made a fence post appear like a statue of the Virgin) and there was a short-lived media frenzy, interviewing “pilgrims” (Protestant, Catholic, New Age, not religious at all) and reporting on acts of vandalism that imperilled the fence through which “Mary” became visible.' (Introduction)

Small Miracle and Other Visions Peter Pierce , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 24 June 2017; (p. 22)
'In the field of Australian poetry publishing, hope is never lost. However small the print run, limited the critical response, minimal the financial return, presses have always started up and battled on, fuelled by idealism. The latest player has made an ambitious ­beginning. The poetry series from Perth-based UWA Publishing was “established in 2016 in ­response to the decline in poetry publishing ­nationally and to the high volume of quality submissions we receive”.' (Introduction)
Adventurous, Challenging and Thoughtful : Paul Scully Reviews ‘Our Lady of the Fence Post’ by J.H. Crone Paul Scully , 2017 single work essay review
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , January – March no. 21 2017;
'H. Crone’s Our Lady of the Fence Post, a book-length poetic dissertation of sorts, begins as an imaginative interleaving of two narratives: the effects on the seaside community of Sunshine Bay (a cipher for Coogee) of the Bali bombings and the sighting of a Marian apparition there. The community is particularised through “bystander” characters including, Mari, Maria de Jesus, Joe, and Mae who have their own stories and afford the work a vital personal dimension. The loci and vessels of connection are place, religion (Islam, Catholicism and, more distantly, Hinduism), and the secondary impacts that “great” events wreak on “collateral” and individual lives. Crone goes so far as to hint at causality, as well as connection, by having an expert suggest that the sightings are a manifestation of the spiritual unease the bombings and their antecedents have engendered.' (Introduction)
A Remarkable Book of Poetic Investigative Journalism/Our Lady of the Fence Post Niki Tulk , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 31 no. 2 2017; (p. 455-457)

— Review of Our Lady of the Fence Post Jennifer Crone , 2016 selected work poetry

'The work ranges wider than this terrorist event, gathering within its orbit other facets of the "war on terror" that include a 2015 ISIS suicide bombing and the 2005 Cronulla Riots that pitted Caucasian Australians against largely Lebanese immigrants, thus placing issues of domestic and racial violence against a broader backdrop of global unrest. There is also a set of Twitter excerpts from a now-defunct account by Jake Bilardi, an eighteen-year-old Melbourne man who converted to radical Islam and died in a suicide bombing in Iraq, March 2015. ("Graffiti Triptych," 26) Also, The ocean cliff's buoyant wind wantons goose-bumped skin ("Something is Lost," 46) The often lush imagery points toward the realm of wonder and divine, of fertility and the chance for change, countering the violence, racism, and sexism that threads through much of the content.' (Publication abstract)

A Review of Four Titles from UWA Publishing’s Poetry Alyson Miller , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: Editor's Desk - 2017 2017;

— Review of Our Lady of the Fence Post Jennifer Crone , 2016 selected work poetry ; Border Security Bruce Dawe , 2016 selected work poetry ; Star Struck David McCooey , 2016 selected work poetry ; Melbourne Journal : Notebooks 1998-2003 Alan Loney , 2016 selected work poetry
Worlds and Fragments : Four Collections from UWA Publishing Peter Kenneally , 2017 single work essay review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , January-February no. 388 2017; (p. 59-60)

'A book called Our Lady of the Fence Post (UWA Publishing, $22.99 pb, 105 pp, 9781742589121) by a poet called J.H. Crone is an irresistible proposition, simply as a notion. Luckily for readers, neither is at all fanciful. This verse narrative explores the events around the appearance in 2003 of a likeness of the Virgin Mary on a fence post at Coogee, near the site of a memorial for five local rugby players killed in the Bali bombings. Crowds of fervent worshippers flocked to the scene.'

(Introduction)

Adventurous, Challenging and Thoughtful : Paul Scully Reviews ‘Our Lady of the Fence Post’ by J.H. Crone Paul Scully , 2017 single work essay review
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , January – March no. 21 2017;
'H. Crone’s Our Lady of the Fence Post, a book-length poetic dissertation of sorts, begins as an imaginative interleaving of two narratives: the effects on the seaside community of Sunshine Bay (a cipher for Coogee) of the Bali bombings and the sighting of a Marian apparition there. The community is particularised through “bystander” characters including, Mari, Maria de Jesus, Joe, and Mae who have their own stories and afford the work a vital personal dimension. The loci and vessels of connection are place, religion (Islam, Catholicism and, more distantly, Hinduism), and the secondary impacts that “great” events wreak on “collateral” and individual lives. Crone goes so far as to hint at causality, as well as connection, by having an expert suggest that the sightings are a manifestation of the spiritual unease the bombings and their antecedents have engendered.' (Introduction)
Small Miracle and Other Visions Peter Pierce , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 24 June 2017; (p. 22)
'In the field of Australian poetry publishing, hope is never lost. However small the print run, limited the critical response, minimal the financial return, presses have always started up and battled on, fuelled by idealism. The latest player has made an ambitious ­beginning. The poetry series from Perth-based UWA Publishing was “established in 2016 in ­response to the decline in poetry publishing ­nationally and to the high volume of quality submissions we receive”.' (Introduction)
[Review Essay] Our Lady of the Fence Post Carole Cusack , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Literature & Aesthetics , vol. 27 no. 1 2017; (p. 108-110)

'Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the contemporary world, accompanied by the (usually religious) phenomenon of pilgrimage, may be understood as an instance of the medieval manifesting in the modern. On 12 October 2002 Paddy’s Irish Bar and the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali were bombed by Islamic terrorists, an attack in which 202 people, from twenty-one countries, died. Twenty of the dead were from Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, and six were members of the Coogee Dolphins football team. In late January 2003 Coogee local Christine Cherry of the Beach Street Gallery Laundrette revealed to the media that, viewed in the afternoon sun, the fence on the headland that had been recently renamed “Dolphins Point” in honour of the dead appeared to resemble the Virgin Mary. Crowds flocked to Coogee to see the apparition (which technically was not an apparition because it was a trick of the light that made a fence post appear like a statue of the Virgin) and there was a short-lived media frenzy, interviewing “pilgrims” (Protestant, Catholic, New Age, not religious at all) and reporting on acts of vandalism that imperilled the fence through which “Mary” became visible.' (Introduction)

Last amended 28 Nov 2018 09:42:38
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