Deb Westbury - 1954 -

Deb Westbury was born in Wollongong in 1954 and has been a familiar and respected voice in Australian poetry since her work was first published in 1975. Her poetry has since been widely anthologised, including the Oxford Anthology of Women's Verse (edited by Susan Lever, 1995).
Deb was born and has spent most of her life on the NSW coast south of Sydney, developing a dual career as a writer and teacher - with an undergraduate degree in teaching and a Master of Creative Arts degree in writing. (See http://www.laterallearning.com/hsc/westbury.html)

The following poem is from Westbury's collection of poems - Mouth to Mouth.

Resist-dance

I'm the rain,

You the window

closed against me.

You come between

but I spit and dribble,

pound and deafen,

till, in the end, I loose my deluge

and distort your vision

of the outside

You resist me

but after each deluge

the timber of your small frame warps,

the cracks widen

between you and your walls,

and each small movement threatens

the glass with breaking.

A wonderful example of a simple, yet powerful extended metaphor.  Westbury has a strong connection to the landscape and environment around her.  Whilst this poem may not seem distinctly Australian, it comes from the distinctive feminist, Aussie voice of Deb Westbury.