Ah, maybe the best 'Aussie' element in contemporary poetry is the
'freshness'. I see it mostly in non-poets writing poems. When I run
workshops, there are always old doddering blokes with hearing aids - humble
and bashful at being there, with a herd of years of work out in the
'sunburnt country' on their faces and their monosyllabic tongues. These
blokes invariably come up with some startling earthy images during the day,
images the young 'hip' poets seem incapable of - yet the old blokes can't
sustain an organic poem and have to resort to verse stereos they have in
their heads. Once they escape into that, they lose the freshness (so a lot
of my workshops stay with imagery and figures of speech, etc - maybe some
more exotic forms ((for them)) like pantoums and ghazals - to stop this fall
back on set patterns) (this 'tarpit of habit' as John Tranter called it
somewhere).
One of my favourites - and he was a Yorkshire man originally, so that says
something about his character - was down at the Summer School in Albany, an
ex-whaling port on the Southern Ocean. He was tall and built like the
proverbial brick shithouse, and he looked so awkward and out-of-place at his
schoolroom desk :-) The classes went every morning for three hours (with a
middle session break). For the first two days he said and wrote nought. I
thought he and another fellow were 'challenged' by the talent of some of the
others, so I drew back to the old haiku for a simple direct image, without
abstractions. He seemed mystified by Basho, Issa and Shiki, so I just
continued on, thinking he was a lost cause. I set them writing a haiku ...
and after a minute or two he scribbled something down, then folded his arms
again over the pint-sized desk with its dry inkwell corner. I couldn't wait
to ask him to share, but I had to wait the allotted time ... Then I said,
Would anyone care to share theirs with us? Perhaps Ian ...
And he stood up and said, with his lovely rich accent: I dunno if I got it
right ... I dunno if this is what you want ... But (deep breath) 'ere goes:
Cow chews.
Blinks.
Cow chews.
Stunned silence. A perfect picture of a cow in a paddock. And a
characterisation of a cow in a paddock at the same time. A wonderful little
haiku, underwritten for maximum effect. Bew-di-ful. We all clapped and
cheered. He blushed and sat down. 'Read it again!' a woman yelled - and he
stood shyly and did just that.
By Summer School's end you couldn't shut him up, of course, and the 'clever'
ones were looking up to him.
Ezra Pound said somewhere, sometime, somehow, that he preferred amateur
poets to professionals. He was talking of amateur poets in another way, and
listed a few well-known names (Marianne Moore, I think, was among them). I'd
like to see that piece of writing again, if anyone can direct me to it.
Thanks.
Andrew
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2005 6:51 AM
Subject: Re: Poem/Play (was Re: Pinter on Blair et al.)
Sure, and from this distance the edges blur if not become indistinct.
I don't claim to know many rooms in that mansion (then again, I don't
really know about the different quadrants in English poetry). We don't
receive the latest this side of the world, and I've been engaged in
much navel-gazing recently but I'll do my best to respond. Mostly it's
poets I've met at conferences or who've published over here or who I
talk to on email lists, so it's not a deep sample. I would be
interested in any pointers deeper.
In part it's due to my travel, I've been to Australia a couple of
times back in the 80s. I have have memory of Flinders Square, the
Stockmans bar, sailing up the long lanky coast for days on end. So,
nostaligia, and travel-memories. Another part, it's due to the
qualities that I think Australian poets exhibit, a confidence, a
feeling for words that speaks of not so much exoticism (although that
plays it's part, the experiences of the Pacific rim, a relatively new
land, also it's an exoticism that seems to speak to me in a way that
others do not), a way of putting things that made them strange without
unduly being constrained by the kind of circumstances I see around me,
or having the edge of ideology without the need to swing at it heavy
handed. Turning a neat phrase with punch and twist (leafing thru the
Ern Malley Affair, I come across the phrase, "the duke of dark
corners"), also a hardness, a toughness, a fuck-you-ness yet a
fragility, an underlying neurosis, possibly, a history of fake poets
which seems to me to rival the great Ossian. The Ern Malley affair
fascinated me for a long while, in all its small-mindedness yet
acheiving the wrong ends. In part it tuned to the fakeness I didn't
know I was going through at the time, a marraige about to break apart.
Yes, I know Oz is a monarchy (*rolls eyes) but still there's a kind of
I know no masters, independance about your poetry, a willingness to go
to the edge of syntax and expect or not care that we follow. There are
also darker edges, pain, harshness, cruelty. A lyric which is new. If
I blindtasted a number of poets, I reckon I'd pick an Australian poet.
For a while I've been trying to emulate some Australian poets without
much success. There's something elusive about how poets down there
weld abstraction and concrete without it becoming wooley. OTOH, poetry
that comes from every day speech yet is plainly poetry, but not,
somehow, conversational poetry.
Sorry, not many technical reasons, mostly from the heart.
If I were to do a mashup, this is what it might look like:
I am still
the black swan of tresspass on alien waters
as they place a small bundle wrapped
in linen inside a hessian sack - the red stamp
of ASW wheat glowing like the stamp
of death
hushed to inaudible sound
the deepening rain closed around me
on those ridges where the road
has led me to hunger and darkness and again
pain grabbed me cruelly and tossed me
into the violent land of my body
Yrs
Roger
On 12/15/05, Jill Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Sorry Roger,
>
> I'm not quite getting it. 'Australian poetry in general' is too big a
> beast to, well, generalise about. Or to use another cliche, too many
> rooms in that mansion.
>
> What do you mean by 'guiding light', if you don't mind elaborating? We
> can leave names out, or list names anyway, but I'm curious now. I'd be
> interested to know from a non-Australian familiar with the field.
>
> Cheers,
> Jill
>
>
> On Thursday, December 15, 2005, at 08:51 PM, Roger Day wrote:
>
> > On 12/14/05, Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >> The Republic has been on the public agenda since the 1850s. It says
> >> something that it's not here yet.
> >>
> >> On 15/12/05 9:27 AM, "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I hear you taking traditions come as you please, given the freedoms
> >>> you say you have. I just don't see it in operation
> >
> > "in your poetry or attitude". Australian poetry in general - even down
> > to Banjo Patterson - has been my guiding light for years. Serves me
> > right for writing this whilst trying to write build tools for
> > cross-compilers.
> >
> > Hey nonny-nonny
> > R
> _______________________________________________________
> Jill Jones
>
> Latest books:
> Broken/Open. Available from Salt Publishing
> http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/1844710416.htm
>
> Where the Sea Burns. Wagtail Series. Picaro Press
> PO Box 853, Warners Bay, NSW, 2282. [log in to unmask]
>
> Struggle and radiance: ten commentaries (Wild Honey Press)
> http://www.wildhoneypress.com
>
> web site: http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~jpjones
> blog1: Ruby Street http://rubystreet.blogspot.com/
> blog2: Latitudes http://itudes.blogspot.com/
>
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