>I met Les a while ago and, although I wasn't keen on being either nice or
>polite to
>someone (a boring writer at that) who works for the extreme right-wing
>publication 'Quadrant', I ended up shaking hands and sharing a laugh with
>him. He's
>a lot more likable in person than he is on the page. Which make me agree with
>Douglas C; he probably won't survive as a writer. In a few decades he may be
>remembered as Australia's belated imitation of Henry Longfellow, but
>that'd be it.
>As far as Vendler's attitude towards other post-colonial poets is concerned, I
>wouldn't call her ignorant. From what I know of her work, Vendler is a
>passionate
>and private reader and doesn't get invovled in the social aspects of promoting
>poetry and publishing a la Perloff. I think a lot of the hyperbolic praise
>heaped
>upon Australian poets in particular has been the result of desperate altruism,
>unabashed nepotism and trans-continental back-scratching i.e. the
>'cringe'. I'm not
>surprised that Vendler doesn't want a bar of it.
>
>Ali
>
>P.S. Sorry if my views offend. No offence was intended.

You aren't being offensiev, Ali, but I disagree, & I'm not Australian. And
I have to laugh at that line about Vendler's not getting involved in the
social aspects of promoting poetry. I mean, wow! Of course, Perloff does so
too, & it just so happens I like her work & not Vendler's so we can't agree
there anyway. But the reviews, the anthologies, where she has so definitely
& defiantly left some of the most important US poets out, & the criticism
of 'her' poets (like Perloff'sof hers): well, that's promotion, mate.

As for Murray's awful right wing sentiments, yeah: they're a barrier all
right, especially in recent work, & certaily in the prose. But I've read
him on the page (& I've met him), & some of the work in the Collected is
major by any standard I go by. The poet writing often 'knows' better & more
than the person fulminating in public.

I would, myself, choose some other poets of his generation as my favorites,
including, but not limited to, Robert Adamson, John Tranter, Jennifer
Maiden (at her best), and others. There's some eal poetry happening down
there, & I would agree with David Bircumshaw that it's often more
interesting than the work of mainstream Britain. But maybe it's just that
we of the later settler colonies stick togeher in this...

Doug

Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320      (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm

        There is no real
        world, my friends.
        Why not, then
        let the stars
        shine in our bones?

                Robert Kroetsch