“I am a poet and boy, do I know it,” may have been a cliché spoken as a child.

But Luke Whitington, local Elizabeth Bay resident, is living that ideal.

He has lived in heritage-listed Birtley Towers, Elizabeth Bay for five years and is the local Poet Laureate.

Birtley Towers is a magnificent Art Deco block built in 1934 by reknowned architect, Emil Sodersten.

Its foyer is the very definition of chic.

His ouvre has been widely published by the Irish Centre for poetry, The Sigh Press, Florence, the Anthology of Canberra Poets, the Overland,the  Canberra Times, the Braidwood Times, the Australian Anthology of Love Poetry and Poets’ Corner, New York. He is regular contributor to Quadrant, formerly edited by the late, great Les Murray AO.

His current book, “Only Fig and Proscuitto”, silhouettes his time in Italy, through its sensuous food and culture. And he has another book in the pipeline to be published by Ginninderra Press, “what light can do – and breathless in exile” to be released May/June 2022.

He is also a heritage conservator. He spent six years restoring Portlick Castle, originally built in 1192 by order of King John.

Portlick Castle is a late mediaeval tower house castle near the village of Glasson, County Westmeath, Ireland. It comprises a square late mediaeval four-storey stone tower with an attached two-storey Georgian wing and Victorian tower along with 30 hectares of walled gardens.

His conservation of a 12th century Italian monastery, San Faustino di Bagnolo, now a boutique hotel in Umbria, was also a success.

He says “good poetry is like a piece of pottery: it evolves as it juggles upwards, or is like a message in a bottle which can be found by anyone anywhere.”

It may be just air but it is delicious to hear.

Walt Witman, American poet, suggested good poetry pieces are like embers, bringing with them an invisible wind.

Autumn frolics. 

We spoke in figs

Slowly peeling off the skins

Relishing the purple-pink innards

The seasonal sweetness

The ruby red Torregiano

Rolled about in the glass for us

Naked, silken, dark red, better

Than Chianti, smiles even redder now

Sipping soft slow trickles of its flesh –

The vineyards above invited us

Veering, half golden, up the hillsides

Leaves mellowing like us –

In drifting thoughts we wore

The tawny colours of autumn

Leaves of thoughts falling

Whispering down about us – urgency ripening

In our smiles, drunken

With happiness

We spoke of figs, in tastes of figs

Relishing our ruby seasonal sweetness.

Luke Whitington.

(Torregiano;  a red wine district in Umbria)

by Andrew Woodhouse

Heritage Solutions