Saturday, July 26, 2008

Christopher Barnett my brother

I was searching through some old paperwork and photographs today and found this torn photo of my brother Chris. Chris still lives in France, he has been a French citizen for many years now. He is poor health and it was nice to find him looking happy and well perhaps nearly 40 years ago! He has been writing poetry and plays throughout the world ever since he left school. See this discussion of one of his plays which "Selling Ourselves for Dinner" which was commissioned for the Adelaide Festival in 1982
Christopher Barnett my brother
I scanned a couple of things last night. This article comes from " A Book to Write Poems By" published as a school text by Rory Harris and Peter McFarlane in 1983. Peter wrote about Chris working at his school:
chris quote sharp
The next is one of my favourite poems by Chris, which was also published in the same text:
Flowers for my father Lost

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

how can i contact christopher barnett? im a big fan of his work but he seems to be a very hard person to track down...

Stephen Michael Barnett said...

Contact me at stephenmichaelbarnett@gmail.comnospam
(remove the nospam)
As you left no email address yourself!

runawaygypsy said...

wow...i can't get that poem out of my head...do you have any more work of Chris, or a place i could find a collection of it?

Taliesin said...

I knew Chris in Melbourne in the early 90s and made a film with him (Against the Innocent - I produced and Daryl Dellora directed), partly based on his play Ulrike Meinhoff Sings. One of my favourite lines from Chris is "We pray to lesser gods than we are ourselves". I stay in Paris a bit these days and have always tried to find him. I hope he is well. If anyone knows how we can get in touch again please email me at diak.moris@gmail.com

Richard Jones

Steve Mepham said...

A mutual friend - Nick Tsoutas - has gone to see Chris in France recently because I understand Chris to be in failing health. (Nick directed several of Chris' early works in Australia). Can you provide an update on Chris please

Stephen Michael Barnett said...

Contact me at stephenmichaelbarnett@gmail.comnospam
(remove the nospam)
As you left no email address yourself!

Unknown said...

Send Chris big bisous from Dianne Matters. I was a mate of Chris in early 80's and intermittently met until he disappeared to France, when I was in Africa. I recently came back from France & kicking myself I didn't look him up there.

eddie khalil said...

HEY , CHRISTOPHER , whenever we feel like tha mythical 'they' is running rings around usz wheel walk swear miles round 'them' ...eh eh eh ?111
POET POET POET
keep on keeping on , on , on ,
further , farther father , the length of south road ...marion road ...morphett road , tha highway , darn the median strip-universe ...carolyn cassidy's book OFF THE ROAD is a good read...had occasion to see
RON HADDRICK , a hero , at festersville centre , reminded of his recording of THE MOODS OF GINGER MICK.................
lerv , khalil [knot well , dear? ]da ggibbrraannn mess-age...shall not weary our dunlopillows...