I wrote:
>>> Some white Australian critics have found black Australian poetry to
>>> be "not poetry at all" because they do not understand it is NOT
>>> DRAWING ON THEIR MODELS, it is not even TRYING to be englit, so the
>>> white critic "failing" it is missing the point. (It was a revelation
>>> to me to start listening to black Aust. critics talking about black
>>> Aust. writing.)

Steve wrote:
> This is very interesting. Could you say a little more on the nature of
> black Australian writing and, specifically, black Aust. critics talking
> about black Aust. writing (the nature of your revelation). I presume your
> experience in this area has affected your own "template", as it were?

It's very diverse, and I don't claim any kind of expertise. But I can tell
you what I meant. My "template" started to change when I began first to
read about Aboriginal paintings and realise that though they in many cases
sold on a general market (could be fitted in as "abstract" art in the
European understanding) they were highly coded in a way that wasn't even
speaking to me, that is to say, not even trying to (and my arrogance had
educated me to think things did speak to me). I could thus apply
European-derived "good", "bad" or "indifferent" standards, but I would be
missing a huge point.

I realised then that this must apply to all sorts of cultural expression.
Where white critics had trashed some black poets (for use, for example, of
4-line stanzas and "simple" verse forms, seen as outdated in white
practice) I *did* always feel that they were missing the point, but I
didn't realise in all sorts of ways that there were "templates" entirely
outside my experience, predecessors and experiences that were being
invoked. Those white critics who saw the poems as "bad" implicitly
attributed this to the poets' ignorance, whereas it was their own ignorance
at work.

Let me stress (and not simply to make myself feel better, but to show how
subtle *and* gross one's own ignorance can be) that I was never anti- these
poets, but unaware what dimensions I missed in their work. The Aboriginal
writer and critic Kevin Gilbert (now deceased) compiled an anthology called
Inside Black Australia with an eye-opening introduction. A writer and
critic named Jackie Huggins who is entirely conversant with academic-speak
but chooses to cast her arguments within the english of her own community
also made me realise to what degree I was complacently reading Aboriginal
writers on "my" terms. A poet called Lionel Fogarty writes material that
entirely defies any tools my complacency had provided for me. Then too the
writer and critic Mudrooroo.I would hesitate even to give a description of
these works because they are various and powerful and best experienced
direct. Two of the Aboriginal poets whose work I have been immersed in
(Fogarty, Lisa Bellear) will be available to read in Britain in an
anthology ed. by John Kinsella mentioned earlier today (Landbridge). They
have published books in Australia.

Yes, my "template" has changed in that I realise I am not "educated" at
all. When Kevin Gilbert tells of Australian whites in the past amusing
themselves by kicking the heads off Aboriginal children I realise that
there is a context of which I have been raised ignorant.I realise that it
is self-deluding to deny the political dimension of the act of writing (and
that of reading).

All best
Tracy.



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