on 9/9/01 8:16 AM, Alison Croggon at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> There are few new books that I've enjoyed as much as With The First Dream
> of Fire - and although I'm not in the least "academic", I suppose I do read
> as a specialist reader of poetry - that is, someone who likes poetry and
> reads a lot of it.
Congratulations, Trevor, on drawing some sensible comment in the media. I
have read some of the work in the Wild Honey site, which I very much liked,
and probably should get exercised further to order a copy of the book. (I
imagine the book, like many other good ones, cannot be bought in Australia
so I keep waiting in vain for the Australian dollar to lift a little and
stay lifted. I should bite nearest bullet - and Alison's rap has urged me
on.)
> It _was_ great to see it recognised like that, on other criteria of
> "importance" than is usually recognised in the mainstream press. Made me
> wish rather wistfully that would happen here...
Instead, the so-called 'literary sections' of our newspapers have seemed
recently to have either been dumbed down or just disappeared. One 'story' I
heard (how true, who knows) was that Lachlan Murdoch wanted to 'kill off'
The Australian's Review of Books a couple of years back. it was 'saved' but
when he finally said it needed to be 'dumbed down' or else it was mercifully
put to bed. I was never a huge fan of the publication, as in its latter
years I never felt its editors really understood what they were doing, but
it served some purpose in offering more extensive critical analysis than
normally you'd get.
Cheers,
Jill
_________________________________
Jill Jones
50 Ruby Street
Marrickville NSW 2204
AUSTRALIA
[log in to unmask]
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~jpjones
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