Julia English for EWF X Textile Message

For ‘EWF X Textile Message‘ as part of the 2025 Emerging Writers’ Festival.

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Earlier this year, I completed my thesis, and as anyone who has had a friend of family member complete a PhD knows, it is a rollercoaster of emotions. Poetry became a way for me to capture these feelings and engage with my thinking process. Up until now, my poems have mainly stayed on my notes app, so when I was offered this opportunity, it felt like the perfect testing grounds to participate in the creative writing community here in Naarm. As someone who is a newcomer to poetry, I challenged myself to use meter and rhyme more carefully, creating a lined columns in notebooks to track syllables and emphasis. I’ve included a picture below, as I am always curious about other people’s processes and thought that you might be as well.

For this poem, I am returning to a reflection I wrote a few years ago about my favourite scarf, which was one of the most worn pieces in my wardrobe. This scarf has been that ever-present object in my wardrobe, in some ways it has felt ageless, as I have moved through tweens, to teens, to university student, and now worker and ‘adulthood’. I am not sure if you have had a piece of clothing that has lingered over the years, a jacket pulled out every winter, or a favourite dress grabbed frequently from the back of the closet? Or maybe a t-shirt that seems to just endure, despite years of rewear? Well, that’s this scarf.

When I went back to this reflection, it spoke of an ever-present, often-worn piece, yet as I considered it, this no longer rang true – I hadn’t worn it in a while. I had changed, and my connection with this beloved scarf had as well. This poem became a chance to share that journey and ask myself why it had perhaps fallen out of favour.

The poem Grown up scarf speaks about how clothing travels with us as we grow, and the complex relationships that this can bring. I hope it sparks fond recollections about pieces in your own wardrobe and prompts you to consider how your interactions with clothes evolve as you share parts of your journey with them.

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