What is counter/field?

counter/field is a long-form poetry project by Australian poet Stef, built as an evolving field of poems, prose fragments, and occasional images. It moves through place, memory, and pressure, using the blog form as both notebook and publication space.

The project is not a single book, but an ongoing environment: something you move through over time rather than a finished object on a shelf. At any moment counter/field may be travelling along a particular arc (for example, the current descent phase), but the direction of travel can and will change.

Overview

counter/field began as a way to see what happens when poems are released into a shared space over time instead of appearing as isolated texts. Each piece sits inside a growing environment of:

recurring images and sites
weather and seasonal shifts
systems and counter-systems
updates and notes about process

Some pieces are close to traditional lyric; others are procedural, mythic, or formally experimental. Together, they map the pressures of ordinary life as they intersect with larger structures: cities, technologies, histories, and beliefs.

“Field” refers both to place (rivers, streets, buses, bridges) and to a zone of experience where things are visible and named. “Counterfield” names the darker, underlying current that pushes back against that apparent surface. “Fieldwork” is the ongoing practice of moving through the real world, making observations, and writing them down.

Themes and Motifs

Although individual poems vary in tone and form, several preoccupations run through the project.

Place and Memory

Many pieces are anchored in specific locations:

river paths and underpasses
bus routes and commuter spaces
suburban streets and apartment interiors

These places are not neutral backdrops. They hold layers of memory, fatigue, and small repeated decisions. The project is interested in how a city records its residents, and how private memory is shaped by public infrastructure.

Weather, Pressure, and Everyday Time

Weather, humidity, heat, storms, and unsettled seasons appear often. They stand in for:

atmospheric and emotional pressure
the difficulty of sleep and rest
the way mood is influenced by climate and routine

The work stays close to everyday time: the last bus home, an early shift, a walk at first light, the quiet of a stairwell. Different arcs of the project move through these small moments differently — sometimes as descent, sometimes as recovery, sometimes as something stranger.

Systems and Counter-systems

Another recurring concern is systems: bureaucratic, technological, social, and psychological. Some pieces adopt a “system voice” in which language becomes more procedural and impersonal. Others push against this, leaning into more intimate, mythic, or fractured speech.

The tension between:

field (lived, observed, contingent) and
counterfield (pressure, refusal, rupture)

is central to how the project organises itself.

Field, Counterfield, and Fieldwork

This trio of terms gives the project its basic structure.

Field

The field is the light, surface layer of the work:

observational, place-based pieces
concrete detail and sensory description
daylight, weather, ordinary routines
a relatively quiet, controlled tone

Field poems build the visible world: river light, traffic noise, the way a bus stop looks after rain. They establish the surface that later arcs will move across or away from.

Counterfield

The counterfield is the darker, underlying layer:

descent into basements, underpasses, back rooms
system voice, procedural language, diagnostic modes
mythic or revenant figures that complicate realism
fracture, volatility, unease, and pressure

Where the field presents what can be seen and named, the counterfield is where that surface begins to distort or give way. It is the zone where structures tighten, where the ordinary becomes uncanny, and where the voice is most at risk of being taken over by systems or older stories.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork is the ongoing practice that animates the project:

walking, commuting, looking, listening
noting the conditions of the day
writing about real places and events over time
returning to sites to see what has changed

Fieldwork produces the material of the field: the observations, routes, and textures that allow the counterfield to feel grounded when it appears. It is an outward-facing, realist mode, even when later arcs pull the work into darker or more speculative territory.

Structure and Arcs

counter/field is organised not as a single linear narrative, but as a sequence of arcs. Each arc is a directional movement through the same field and counterfield.

Some of the possible arcs include:

Descent – movement toward the counterfield: deeper into pressure, darker spaces, procedures, and mythic underlayers.
Ascent – movement back toward the field: light, breath, open streets, relief, or recovery.
Mythic – a turn toward ritual, revenant figures, and occult motifs that sit beside realism.
Recursive – looping back through earlier material in altered form, revisiting scenes and images with new pressure.
Systems – arcs that foreground procedural language, diagnostics, and technological or bureaucratic voices.

The current phase of the project follows a descent arc, in which the work moves gradually from lighter, more open pieces toward basements, late buses, underpasses, and night weather. Future arcs may move in other directions, or follow patterns not yet determined.

The structure is:

serial – new work is added over time
recursive – images and phrases return altered
layered – prose updates, field notes, and poems inform each other

Rather than presenting a fixed storyline, the project lets the reader feel how direction changes: down toward the counterfield, back up toward the field, or sideways into more mythic or systemic territory.

How to Read counter/field

There is no single correct path through the field, but a few approaches may help:

Begin with the “Start Here” page, which offers a current entry point and links to key poems.
Read in clusters, following internal links and recurring locations (bridges, buses, basements, rivers).
Notice the directional language: update posts and hinge pieces often signal when the project is turning toward descent, ascent, or another arc.
Allow for returns: some pieces make more sense after others have been read and then revisited.
Treat updates and reflections as part of the work, not just commentary; they record how the project understands itself at different moments.

You can enter anywhere, but following an arc across multiple posts makes the underlying movement more visible.

Visual Work and Collage

Alongside the poems and prose pieces, counter/field occasionally includes collage images and other visual work. These are not strict illustrations of particular texts; they act as parallel fields, picking up motifs of fragmentation, layering, reuse, and erasure that run through the writing.

Where the Project Is Heading

counter/field is ongoing. Some pieces are being revised toward a more traditional chapbook structure; others will remain only in the online field, tied to the context in which they first appeared.

The project will continue to move between different arcs, including but not limited to:

descent and ascent
observational fieldwork and counter-movement
stillness and pressure
system voice and more intimate speech
realist and mythic or recursive modes

As new work appears, this page will remain the clearest single description of what counter/field is, how the field and counterfield relate, and how the project’s arcs shape the reader’s movement through the work.

Poetry & field notes

Project Overview