Nelson Bours

Interview with China Meldrum

My big green notebook of questions and I ventured over to Nelson Bours’ secret Sydney oasis - complete with a harbour view, a train line running below us, and a delightful balcony complete with his own ‘Do not fear poetry’ sticker on the glass. ‘Do Not Fear Poetry’ has been the tagline to promote his self-published poetry collection, ‘Drink Driving’, a collection of poetry that I would describe as truly Australian. It collates Bours’ experience of a cross country Australia road trip that eventuated into an insightful collection of poetry, moving from ignorance to understanding, from Sydney to Kununnura, and from turbulence to peace. We sat down to talk about Australia, the trials and tribulations of talking to strangers, and what will come next after this creative and poetic realisation.

Shot by Jolie Price

When did the idea to drive around Australia come around?

So the Australian van trip originally started as a bicycle trip. That was my first plan. Then I got a hip injury, which kind of just stopped all that and I was like, “Okay, I can't ride my bike. How do I still do this in a low cost way and be able to go around Australia?” And within a two week period, which was near Christmas in 2022, I just went on carsales.com and found a van for five grand. This was all a product of wanting to get out of Sydney. I'd done three years at uni, spent a year at home during COVID with my parents, and it was just a lot. But I was in the completely flexible mindset of let's go, I need to get out, go around, let's do something… but in my own backyard, not overseas. I find that a lot of people don't actually explore Australia, and with it being our own backyard, there's a lot less barriers. You don't have to pay for a plane ticket, you don't need your passport. And it's humongous, it's diverse and it's all just there, beautiful as always.

I don't think we truly ever realise how expansive Australia is. Did the different places where you'd end up change how and what you'd write?

Definitely. The environment was my main inspiration and I was absorbing and expressing that wherever I went. And that's not only the physical environment, but also the people. Different places had completely different vibes, and although some were beautiful, some were huge caravan parks in the middle of school holidays with a bunch of people. Or the country towns where it's just regional Australians, Australians punching cans in the middle of the day.

Was the poetry idea always there or did it just happen organically?

It wasn't there, no. The idea of the poetry book came around mid-year when I properly was like, okay, let's write more. During Covid, I made a pact where I was like, okay, I'm going to write a poem every day. And that was when I was in a rough place when I was at home with my parents. I couldn't go out, I didn't have a lot of other outlets, but every morning I'd wake up, I'd write a poem, and then I never really thought that the poems would come or tie into the trip, but as soon as I was out there, it did come naturally. And then in the middle of the year when I got to Perth, I was kind of like, shit, I've got enough to at least start a book. I've got half written poems and I've got notes and stuff. I have got the starting of a book. Let's really start focusing on it.

I tried to find some of the ‘Do Not Fear Poetry’ stickers, successfully and unsuccessfully, but when did that slogan come into your head?

Well, I knew that the publishing side of it, to sell books, you need to market yourself. And that's through exposure, through eyeballs seeing your stuff, and poetry is quite niche and quite a small market as is. So in my mind, I was like, I love street art, I love stickers out in the street. I love just the funkiness of it and the roughness of it. So I wanted to put something out on the streets so that people can be taken to my work, and I went with stickers. The “Do Not Fear Poetry” part of it is, I feel like, especially for me, from school where a lot of people feared poetry because you couldn't understand it. It was Shakespeare, it was TS Elliot and it was Yates. And it's like, to be honest, I feel like I have quite a simple mind and my simple mind didn't understand a lot of that, especially old world language. So I felt like there was an aura of fear around poetry.

Shot by Jolie Price

What would you say to all the people who want to write books?

I would say, definitely you can and then it's just a matter of doing it. Just doing it. Write the book. Forget the fear. Your art and your ideas deserve to be out in the world, even if you don't always think it. And just as other people put their ideas out there, you putting your ideas out there adds to the pool and it adds to this human experience and it adds to the flow and web of ideas. So your ideas deserve to be out there, put them out there, share them. You will ignite something in someone else. You may think that you won't, but you do.

Do you reckon that you would've predicted all of this to come out of the trip?

Not at all. Yeah, not at all. My original idea was to go out and separate myself from society to try and hone in on an inner piece that I kind of craved and I didn't have. I had inner turmoil that I wanted to be rid of, but as soon as I was out there, and this was very early on, I found that this isn't going to be about that. This is going to be about connection, discovering what I really want to do with my life, what makes me happy, what doesn't make me happy, and having the freedom to do as I truly please each day. I didn't expect that I'd produce a book from this. I never expected to meet that many people, or that the landscape would have that much of a profound effect on me and the direction that I want to go in life. The insights that I gained from that, I would never have expected any of that. For myself now, poetry is an art form I want to develop and continue spreading. I discovered it in my blood and I want to tap into this further. I’m constantly posting poems on my Instagram and always have books in the works! So it was a completely beautiful surprise that was also a punch in the face.

Top three sources of inspiration?

1. The environment I’m in (from concrete jungles to the desert)
2. Conversations with strangers
3. What I’m consuming (from food to books to music)

Who do you think is the most exciting young & emerging creative in Sydney?

Max Cattana / Actor
@maxcattana