Down here, Jill, cheap rent
makes it hard to tell the Sydneys
from the Melbas.
cheers
Hugh
----- Original Message -----
From: Jill Jones <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 8:45 AM
Subject: Re: Oldthread revisited 2 - centres
> Roddy said:
>
> "I recently bought Landbridge and was interested in what jvk was saying
> about 'Sydney' in the introduction. It seem to me that 'centres' may
> have monopolies on publishing and establishments, but that they don't
> seem to produce their fair share of poets. Only a handful of Sydney
> poets in Landbridge which seems few, considering it has over a fifth of
> the population."
>
>
> The one obvious thing to say is that there are Sydney poets who didn't
> appear in Landbridge. Doesn't every review of every anthology you've ever
> read list the omissions? I'm not quite sure of the point here.
>
> For the record, I was born and bred in Sydney, for my sins, and still
> live here. I may be more than an exception than a rule - who knows? I was
> talking to another poet friend of mine last night (born in England but
> lived in Sydney most of his life) and he said that you can be in the
> right place at the right time and get taken up by the 'taste-makers'. And
> you can be unlucky and be in the wrong place, be the wrong age, wrong
> gender, etc, etc, etc. We, of course, were sharing our private opinions
> on who has been 'anointed' and who hasn't, at least in the world of Oz
> poetry (I'm sure it's a common past-time throughout the poetry world). It
> goes without saying that the older you get the more cynical you become.
>
> But, yes, there are one or two poets from Sydney. Maybe more, indeed,
> even 'good' ones (however you may wish to construct that) who don't
> appear in the latest anthologies. There are all sorts of reasons for
> that, as you can imagine. "Wrong place/wrong time" is just one of them.
>
> Anthologies reveal as much by what they leave out as they include, to
> state the obvious. But as I have not read Landbridge I haven't done a
> head count. Hugh seems on top of the Sydney:Melbourne ratio in that
> particular volume but what are we talking about? City of birth, city of
> current residence, city where someone wrote most of their work? What
> effects do your surroundings have on your work? Does it change when you
> change towns? I think I am a very 'Sydney' poet but I wonder sometimes
> what that means.
>
> Cheers,
> Jill
>
>
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