Alan Riddell

Heide Museum has a distinct relationship with Australian poetry. Formerly Heide was the residence of John and Sunday Reed. John was the publisher of Angry Penguins, and so Heide became one of the nodes of the Ern Malley saga.

Poet and editor of overland Barrett Reid also lived at Heide. More pertinently for this post is the fact that the Reed's adopted son Sweeney grew up there and became a concrete poet and poetry publisher. His work forms part - you could say the heart - of the Heide collection of concrete poetry. Reed made explicit use of both Stein and cummings in his poetry; the influence of Ian Hamilton Finlay is also apparent. Reed had plans to collaborate with Finlay when he died in 1979. Though not, apparently, prolific his conceptually dense works suggest a commitment to both the construction of his work, and the construction of a place for his work within poetry (rather than within art which was the more immediate influence: his adoptive parents being art patrons and early supporters of Sidney Nolan, who also lived at Heide. Reed's biological parents, Joy Hester and Albert Tucker were also painters).