2021 SASS Writing Competition Winners
“In the Summertime” was SASS’ debut writing competition in 2021! With the different categories of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, USYD students submitted many different pieces celebrating what ‘summertime’ meant to them. It was a showcase of talent and artistry as blisteringly brilliant as summer itself - featured here are our wonderful winners!
POETRY WINNER: Forgive me body, Rhian Mordaunt
It was last summer when I realised that my body was a canvas, left unpainted out of fear that someone
would look at my colours and refuse to call it art.
When I left the house bare chested, wearing only sea salt and sunlight because those are the accessories
that make me feel most beautiful.
When I grazed by the beach and felt the sun press up against my back, his lips so tender I barely noticed
when he left a mark.
When I looked in the mirror and noticed my skin getting darker.
When I believed that my body was attacking me and deserved to be punished with skin lightening creams
and bleach.
When I replayed memories of my aunt telling me that fairness is beauty and beauty deserves love.
When I realised that everyone wants to be loved.
When I decided to watch the rest of the summer from inside my room, only seeing his colours through
rays of light which crept through my windows.
When I would go out at night and dance with the moonlight, I never had the courage to tell him that my
heart belonged to the sun but somehow he knew.
When I met a young man who walked along the shore in the evenings, picking up fragments of shells and
putting them back together.
When I realised that nothing is ever truly broken.
When I got so distracted that I didn’t even notice that the sun had come up.
When the young man looked at me and said that I looked different in the sunlight, as though I was
suddenly at peace.
Forgive me body, I forgot to love you.
FICTION WINNER: Honey, Angela Leech
The day’s heat lingered into the night. We were in my parents’ room, stretched out across their double bed. I remember a tangle of freckled limbs and knotted hair lolling about under the ceiling fan, Hazel’s legs thrown across my belly and the cat curled up on our father’s pillow.
It was late, almost half-past nine. We’d been home from the Warren’s neighbourhood Christmas Eve party for hours. Hazel and I had run back; raced across the overgrown nature reserve, held our breath past Cemetery Lane, watched as the porchlight flicked on and woke up the cat, waiting at the front door. He weaved around our legs as we fiddled with the lock and spare key.
The Warrens lived one over, on Telford Street, in a white brick house with a chlorine pool and a hive of bees in their backyard. Mum and Dad were still there, of course, busy drinking Mrs. Allen’s fruit punch. This is how I picture them: swaying along with ‘How to Make Gravy’ in her yellow dress and his dark Polo, dizzy and laughing and telling loud stories about the trip they took to South America the year before I was born.
Without them, the house felt wrong. I was used to chatting kookaburras and a bubbling kettle, the white noise of the news, forgotten on the TV. It was the first time Hazel and I had been awake, alone, in the dark. The lights on the Christmas tree blinked at me from the living room. An uncanniness, like goose bumps up the backs of my arms, a tightness in my lungs. Passing headlights crept across the walls.
Hazel stared into the dimly lit fish-tank on the kitchen bench. I filled up the cat’s water bowl and wandered around, closing the windows. I could hear Mum’s voice telling me to keep them open, to let out the muggy air. But the tangle of shadows outside had raised the hairs on my arms; I double-checked all the locks.
Hazel chased the cat into Mum and Dad’s room and flicked on their ceiling fan. Catching him in her arms she dropped him on their bed, throwing herself across the mattress a moment later. I twisted myself between them.
Buzzing cicadas and the cat’s purring and the quiet drone of the fan. I thought Hazel might have fallen asleep, but after a while, she stuck her head up and looked at me. ‘Do you think Fish gets hot?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Fish was a yellow and white Siamese fighter that Hazel was minding for the couple next door. He had a small glass tank with a pink plastic fern in the corner. She had spent half an hour positioning it right in the middle of our kitchen island, and Mum had let her keep it there.
She rolled across the mattress, squirming from the heat. ‘Do you think he gets lonely?’
I shook my head. Hardly a moment went by without Hazel brooding over his tank. ‘Dad said they’re very territorial. Fish probably likes it better by himself.’
‘Could we sit with him?’
I prodded at her belly. ‘You’d break his tank,’ I said, and Hazel scrunched her face at me. Then something changed, and she turned serious.
‘Do you think he’d like a bigger tank?’
I laughed at her, pushing her legs off my torso. Fish was all she had been able to talk about since the moment the neighbours dropped him off. I saw her grinning and reaching out to attack me again, and then all at once the room went dark and out the window the streetlights flicked off. The drone of the fan died away and Hazel yelped and the cicadas buzzed and the cat had gone quiet.
Hazel grabbed onto my arm. ‘Junie?’
After a moment I said, ‘The power’s gone out.’
Warm air had already started creeping in through the open bedroom door, suffocating the remnants of the fan’s breeze. We peeled ourselves off the bed and Hazel followed me into the hallway, keeping close behind. The Christmas tree cast jagged shadows on the carpet. In the kitchen, Hazel leaned her elbows on the island and peered into the fish-tank. She pulled at her pyjama shirt and told me she was hot. I said nothing: my thoughts were caught on the branches that scraped the living room window. I pulled two torches from the second drawer, set one down in front of Hazel and clutched the other in a fist.
I settled on a stool and closed my eyes, cooling my forehead on the island countertop. I heard Hazel click her torch on. And I heard Hazel click her torch off. And on, and off. And on. She pulled at the fridge door. I cracked my eyes open to her resting her head on the shelf, beside the potato salad Mum had made for tomorrow’s Christmas lunch. Hazel yawned. Fridge-air tickled my arms.
I looked up at the clock, squinting to see the hour hand in the dark. Just after ten. Hazel had been dozing off before, under the fan, but now the house had filled back up with heavy air and sleep seemed a million years away. We had left the party at seven-thirty; I glanced out the kitchen window towards the driveway and wondered when Mum and Dad would be home. Hazel groaned beside me. After a moment, I stood and sat by the front door, pulling on my special Christmas sandals, struggling with the buckles in the dark.
Hazel caught my eye from inside the fridge. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m telling Mum and Dad the power is out.’
‘Can I come?’
I looked out onto the street, at the nature reserve that ran alongside the road, and back at Hazel in her orange pyjama shirt and shorts. Shaking my head, I said, ‘You stay here.’ When she frowned at me, I added, ‘In case Mum and Dad get home before I do.’
I pushed the spare key into the pocket of my dress and with a click of my torch, I slipped out the door before she could say anything else.
Heat rose from the asphalt and tickled my calves, the road was sticky under my shoes. Cicadas buzzed from the nature reserve and the powerlines drooped above my head. I headed down the road, held my breath past Cemetery Lane, but stopped short at the clearway through the nature reserve. Dark hollows in the bush made gaping faces and the branches seemed to reach out like hands. My breath caught in my throat. I almost took a step forward, and then a noise like laughing cut through the scrub. I turned my torch back towards the footpath on the other side. There was a long way around to Telford Street.
The Warrens had been the most interesting thing to happen to Apollo Bay since I could remember. Their only daughter – sparkling high-schooler Clementine – had caused quite a stir in their first month, joining the local paper and spearheading a piece that scandalised the long-standing district Councilmember into resignation. Their house, Lancaster, was the tallest one for kilometres: new and clean, barely a year old. They had moved in as soon as construction finished, with loading trucks full of European furniture and Impressionist oil on canvas.
I turned off the footpath and walked up to the front-door. Their pathway was light, pebbly gravel that clicked and shifted underfoot. Three knocks on the door, and then the sound of someone calling from inside. A few moments later there was Clementine Warren, wrapped in a towel and still dripping from the pool.
‘Hey Junie,’ she said, ‘Welcome back.’ She pulled her towel tighter around her shoulders, looked out at the road behind me. She asked, ‘Were you after the honey?’
I froze, suddenly shy, and said nothing. She made a breathy laugh and disappeared around the corner for a moment. When she stepped back into the doorway, she was holding out a basket, filled with tissue paper and a few jars of honey.
‘Your parents forgot it when they left,’ she said. ‘It’s from our bees.’
I nodded slowly at her, taking the honey and trying to smile. If Mum and Dad had already left, why weren’t they at home? Maybe they had passed me on my way around the block. Maybe I had been too focussed on the breeze that shivered through the nature reserve, and the moonlight had coloured all the cars the same glossy shade of metallic pale.
I squeaked out a thank you, and she nodded at me. After a moment she said, ‘Did you want to come inside? I’m pretty sure there’s pavlova left. You could even borrow some swimmers.’
The sound of laughter and splashing spilt out of the house behind her. Hazel and I had forgotten to bring our swimming costumes to the party when we had left home in the afternoon and had been so concerned with missing out on the games and presents that we never went home to get them. I had always wanted to swim in the Warren’s pool. But I felt my head shaking no in response. Mum and Dad would be home by now, I was sure. I didn’t want them to worry about me.
‘I’ve got to go home,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’ I held up the basket of honey and took a few steps backwards down the path.
Clementine smiled. ‘Don’t mention it. Merry Christmas, June.’
‘Merry Christmas!’ I called back and made my way to the road. There was a pause, and then I heard her close the door behind me.
Further up the street, or maybe through the bush, there was something like yelling, or maybe like laughter. The wind picked up for a second, and goose bumps rushed down my arms. I shone the torch around, all of a sudden feeling like someone was looking at me. I walked a little faster.
A few houses down, and I was at the Telford Street side of the nature reserve path. Across the clearway, I could see the streetlights on Ferrier Drive had turned back on. It was Mum and Dad, I was sure. They had beaten me home and fixed the power-outage. I could imagine Hazel pouting about how I hadn’t let her come with me, the concerned glance they would share at the thought of me going alone at all. I knew I had to get back as soon as possible. The nature reserve loomed.
I kept my eyes on the dirt as I stepped toward the branches, the faces with their shadow-mouths. My steps were slow, measured, careful not to snap any debris on the ground, or trip over a rogue tree-root. Everything had been easier when Hazel was running beside me, listening to the giggles that bubbled out despite her heaving lungs.
And then there was a noise like footsteps behind me. I turned around and a figure loomed in the dark and before I could scream or point my torch directly at it, it said, ‘Hey,’ and stretched it’s arm out towards me. ‘It’s just me.’
It was Clementine Warren. ‘I hope I didn’t scare you,’ she said, and took a step closer. I let the honey basket hang loosely beside me, and kept my torch clutched in my other hand.
‘I’m okay,’ I said, all of a sudden feeling like I wanted to cry. I swallowed, pushing my heart back down my throat.
She took a deep breath. ‘Would you mind if I walked you home? It’s just across the reserve, right? Past Cemetery Lane?’
I could feel the tears behind my eyes, heavy and hot like the air inside the kitchen. ‘That’d be good,’ I said, and a silence fell over us as we followed the torchlight. I thought about the street-lights back on at Ferrier Drive, Mum and Dad forgetting the honey at her house. When I was sure I could speak, I asked, ‘How long ago did my parents leave?’
She shrugged. ‘A while,’ she said. ‘Maybe an hour?’
I frowned but said nothing. The house was still dark when we stopped outside.
‘Why are your Christmas lights off? It’s so dark, Santa won’t be able to find the place,’ she said, grinning.
‘The power went out,’ I said.
‘Do you mind if I have a look?’ Clementine asked, and started to walk towards the side of the house. I watched from our front steps as she disappeared around the corner. A moment or two later, the whole house flicked back on. I watched the lights that coiled around our veranda start flashing red and green and white, red and green and white.
I smiled at her when she came back. ‘Thank you,’ I said, and held up the honey. ‘For this and for coming with me.’
Clementine smiled. ‘Maybe I’ll see you at our house for a swim, soon?’
‘Yes, please,’ I nodded. Then she waved at me and disappeared back into the bush.
I turned and raced up our porch, pulled the spare key from my pocket and burst through the door. ‘I’m home!’
But there was no reply, the house was quiet. No sign of Hazel. I pushed the door closed behind me, leaving the Warren’s honey on the side table. Calling Hazel’s name, I walked towards our bedroom. Maybe she had managed to fall asleep. Then something caught my attention from the backyard, a faint sound like rain.
Stepping outside, I found Hazel by the blow-up pool. Her hair was falling out of a pink swimming cap, stretched messily across her head, her one-piece on and floaties tight around her upper arms. She grinned when she saw me, her goggles poised just off her face.
‘Junie!’ she said. ‘Come swim with us.’
‘Us?’
The pool was barely half-full, the hose still gushing and wagging on the grass. I saw his tank first, sitting empty on the lawn, and then fish-net leaning neatly against the pool’s rim.
Then, I saw Fish, floating in the pink Barbie pool, twirling his fins in the corner.
All of a sudden, I couldn’t help myself. Laughter gushed out as I ran over to turn off the hose. When I came back, Hazel flicked on her goggles, and I shook my head at her.
‘Fish might like it better back in his tank,’ I said. ‘You might squash him if you get in.’
She pouted, but let me scoop him out with the fish-net and set him down inside his tank. I thought she might get in the water, but instead she pulled off her cap and goggles and ran towards the trampoline. She bounced a few times, then laid herself down, spreading her arms out like making a snow-angel.
I climbed up too, laying beside her. And without a word, she curled into my side and fell asleep.
NON-FICTION WINNER: Murder, the Moon and Music in the summertime - The Cultural Impacts of the Summer of 1969, Trent Taylor
Summer in the 1960s was dominated by the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the counterculture movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1969, the cultural event that was the Summer of Love was still strongly remembered from two years passed, but the summer of 1969 was to be dominated by its own major events. Where the Summer of Love was remembered fondly in the United States from San Francisco to New York, the events that unfolded in 1969 would be remembered broadly throughout the world, and left a lasting cultural impact on the USA and the world as a whole. The world looked on as the counterculture generation amassed in the three-day event that was the Woodstock festival, becoming one of the most defining music events in history. Across the country in California, the Manson family committed seven murders under the direction of Charles Manson to achieve the race-war goals he envisioned. Further from home, humanity took its first step on alien soil when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon as a part of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. In three months, the summer of 1969 produced three major events that impacted society and culture in the United States, as well as the world over. The moon landing is one of the defining moments of human science and NASA’s space-program, Woodstock became one of the iconic moments of the generation and created a defining moment for counterculture, while Manson’s name is still infamous to the present day. This essay will discuss how these three major events have continued to impact culture up until the twenty-first century.
While summertime generally involves trips to the beach, picnics in the park, visits to local pools and other outdoor activities in the local community, the midsummer of 1969 involved a focus on somewhere much further from home. On July 16th, after years of development and technological innovation, NASA launched its crewed Apollo 11 mission, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would become the first of humanity to walk on the surface of the moon. Filmed and displayed for audiences back home, the moon landing became one of the most-watched broadcasts in history. Approximately 652 million people watched the first moonwalk live on television, constituting almost a fifth of the global population in the 1960s, with many countries watching the live broadcast in the middle of the night. While the feat of scientific progress was embraced by many all over the globe, the Apollo 11 mission and subsequent Moonwalk also left lasting cultural and societal impacts that impacted- and continue to permeate- pop culture, art, fashion, literature and more. The moon landing provided a culmination of imaginings of the moon, and created an intersection between artistic imaginings of humanity in space and scientific progress. While scientists had targeted the moon as a goal of exploration, art had long discussed the trepidations of space exploration. Kubrik’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey features its share of hostilities in space, while Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon encroaches themes of madness, illustrating how many in society viewed the moon from our point on Earth. The moon landing would both relieve some of these anxieties over humanity’s emergence into space, and continue to influence the minds of artists and other thinkers.
Placing a man on the moon changed humanity’s perception of what could be accomplished through technological means. In 1954, Bart Howard’s song Fly Me to the Moon was a tale of whimsical romantic fancy, but little over a decade later, it was a very real feat, accomplished through science. Fashion even saw the moon-obsession of the scientific world, with designers such as André Courrègas taking influence from the building interest in moon-exploration when he created his 1964 ‘Moon Girl’ line. Like other fashion designers of the period, Courrègas celebrated and explored modernity and scientific progress, uniting themes of future and fashion. (1) The emergence of moon-centric language, art and literature began to emerge surrounding the Moonwalk “underscored the way in which the success of Apollo 11 had permanently altered the public’s sense of what a group of humans… was capable of accomplishing.” (2) For the USA in particular, the success of Apollo 11 “heightened a sense of national pride” (3) for having beaten the Soviet Union in the long-standing space race. In many ways, the moon was no longer synonymous with only themes of romance and wonder, but with the stripes and stars of the American flag. However, not all Americans were convinced by these themes of unity and nationalism; African-American activist and writer Eldridge Cleaver argued that the space program only distracted the US from internal issues, such as poverty and marginalization being experienced by Black Americans. This standpoint prompted Gil Scott-Heron to compose the poem Whitey on the Moon, highlighting issues faced closer to home like medical debt while Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon. This poem exemplified afrofuturism and highlighted Black social thought to discuss the use of government funds on the space race, while ignoring internal issues, questioning who had truly benefitted from the moon landing.
Themes of division and unrest would continue to permeate the summer of 1969 when, only several weeks after the Moonwalk, seven Americans were killed over two nights in early August. The investigation would lead police to the Manson Family, a cult led by criminal Charles Manson, who perceived himself as a type of guru of the Family, taken by some of them to be a Christ-like figure. Many of Manson’s followers were members of the hippie and counterculture movements of the 1960s, which had been seen in new heights during the Summer of Love in 1967. Manson used a signature hippie location from the Summer of Love to establish himself as a cult leader, drawing people to him with his seemingly prophetic teachings. Manson’s followers believed themselves to be reincarnations of the original Christians, primarily against the establishment which they saw as the new Romans. After moving to a commune on a ranch, Manson eventually came to convince some members of his family to do murder on his behalf, culminating in the murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others on the night of the 9th of August, before going on to kill two others the following evening. While not personally involved with any of the murders, Charles Manson was sent to prison, where he died at an old age.
The Manson Murders became the focus of the nation during the summer of 1969, with the Tate murders horrifying citizens of the US. The subsequent trial of Manson and the other members involved in the murders endured for more than nine months, making it the longest trial in American history at the time of occurrence. Just as some weeks before the Moonwalk had been one of the most televised moments in history, the Manson trial became one of the most publicised criminal cases in American history. Whilst the family members that committed may not have inherited Manson’s notoriety, Charles Manson himself has had a wide cultural impact, grounding himself as a notorious part of American history and continuing to influence the minds of people well into the twenty-first century. Numerous books have been written on Manson and his followers, including Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, titled after Manson’s ‘Helter Skelter’ philosophy. This philosophy was garnered from The Beatles White Album, which Manson thought to be speaking directly to his Family, foretelling a coming race-war in America. (4) Heavily involved in music, Manson himself wrote several songs which have gone on to be covered by various artists in the decades since his arrest and rise to infamy. Other artists have drawn upon Manson’s fame, with American shock-rocker Marilyn Manson deriving his stage name from two iconic members of the 1960s, Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. The cultural impact of Manson can also be seen in various films and television series, such as Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which used the summer of 1969 as a backdrop for its narrative. Still considered one of the most controversial and infamous criminals of the century, over several days in the summertime of ’69 Manson and his Family managed to create an enduring and lasting legacy and cultural impact.
Amongst the tensions and developments of the US Civil Rights Movement, opposition to America’s involvement in the Vietnam War and other internal issues, the counterculture generation grew and thrived in the 1960s. Decidedly anti-establishment and embracing many hippie and alternative lifestyles, the counterculture movement found a pivotal and defining moment in Woodstock music festival in mid-August, 1969. Held on a dairy farm in New York, the three-day festival was advertised as “3 days of peace & music”, and garnered a turnout of four-hundred thousand attendees. Featuring acts such as Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Janis Joplin, Woodstock quickly became an iconic and defining moment of the music scene in the decade, launching the careers of many other artists as well as going on to achieve even more attention and commercial success through the development of the 1970 documentary on the event. It was this film that “turned Woodstock into the enduring myth that it later became. So many people think they were at Woodstock, but they really only saw the movie”, (5) demonstrating how the massive event managed to influence the culture of not only the attending generation, but for generations to follow as well.
The importance of Woodstock came not only from the artists that performed there, but from the backdrop of social upheaval and disenfranchisement. As stated, it was a defining moment for the counterculture movement, providing a counternarrative to the violence, neglect and political discourse that permeated the USA at the time. With the terror of the Manson murders only occurring several weeks beforehand, Woodstock revealed that a massive amount of people could come together and coexist within the same sphere of ‘peace & music.’ Attempts to recapture the seeming magic of Woodstock have been rather unsuccessful, the festival remains a culturally significant part of American- and world- history. However, in some ways the festival represented both the pinnacle and ending of the counterculture movement- Woodstock’s success provided a financial incentive to the commercial world to market to the counterculture youth, to great success, and thus undermining their values of anti-materialism.
In the summertime of 1969, the USA saw the rise of three major events, which captured the imaginations of the world. Against a backdrop of tense politics, violence, war, racial discrimination and scientific advancement, these major events revealed both the strength and failings of society. The Moonwalk and Woodstock provided a sense of bonding, nationalism and general sense of achievement, while the Manson murders revealed the violent side of humanity. Regardless of their positive or negative impacts, these three major events in the summer of 1969 had long-standing cultural impacts, not only in the USA but across the world. Science, counterculture, art, literature, music and more were all changed by the events of ’69, and well into the twenty-first century we continue to be inspired and awed by the events that took place in the summertime of 1969.
Footnotes:
(1) Andre Courreges and the Moon Girl retrieved from http://roxana-signs.blogspot.com/2012/09/andre-courreges-and-moon-girl.html
(2) Chaikin, Andrew. “Live from the Moon: the Societal Impact of Apollo” in Societal Impact of Spaceflight (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of External Relations, History Division, 2007)
(3) Chaikin, Andrew. “Live from the Moon: the Societal Impact of Apollo” in Societal Impact of Spaceflight (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of External Relations, History Division, 2007)
(4) Watson, Charles, “Manson’s Right Hand Man Speaks Out” (Abounding Love Publishers, 2012)
(5) Wattenberg, B. (Host). (1994). Did Woodstock change America? [Transcript]. In Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript119.html#TOP
PRESIDENT’S PICK WINNER: Holt, Karl Roman-Miller
You may think of Australian summers
As being not much of a bummer,
But listen to this –
A tale often missed –
Of a long-gone Australian summer:
There once was a man we called Holt.
On the beach all his clothes he did moult.
He went for a swim,
But came back not again -
Our long-lost PM Harold Holt.
In Melbourne they took up their tools
And memorialised his fate cruel.
They picked out a site
And named it – quite right –
The Harold Holt Swim Centre Pool.
