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c o r d i t ec o r d i t e Poetry and Poetics Reviewrobert adamsoninterview 5$ 1997 #1 ISSN 1328-2107 page 2corditeN¼ 1 L E S M U R R A Y Subhuman Redneck Poems (Duffy &Snellgrove), J U D I T H B E V E R I D G E Accidental Grace(UQP), JS H A R R Y The life on water and the life AMES T AYLOR Smoke Proofs (PaperBark Press), P HILIP H ODGINS Things happen (A&R). ÒW hat use are poets in adestitute time?Ó askedHšlderlin in his poemÔBread and WineÕ. Weuse are poets in a sunny easy fast-paced high-techpoetry, and a sense of the possible directions forAustralian poetry in the mid-nineties can be gatheredverbal facility. His style owes more to the Australianvernacular of my grandparentsÕ time than to anyhis poems in Subhuman Redneck Poemsconcern hisSubhuman Redneck Poems contains a small group ofastonishingly powerful poems in which Murrayconfronts his own past and his family. ÔIt allows aSpiderÕ are all Þnely felt, compelling poems standingseveral Þne poems focussing on other people, such asÔAn Australian Love PoemÕ and ÔCometeÕ, a quiteThere are also two exquisite short poems: ÔDream- T at his best can be seen from anlast hellosÕ. ÔBurning wanÕ traces thenature of ÒerocideÓ, Òthe destruction ofprosaic, then a line, a phrase will startle us with itsthat reach out from Murray towards this girlof a person speaking with complete openness. Theshorthand fusion of ÒwantÓ and ÒwantednessÓ bringsbeen there but wasnÕt. The poem conveys a powerfulcompassion for the victims of schoolyard fascism: aÔThe last hellosÕ is one of the strongest poems I haveThe ending is an astonishing moment. MurrayÕsdo justice to his need for religion, his need for someMurray taps something very deep within himself in Doggerel and grace:Australian poetry in the mid-Õ90s Review article byPeter Boyle continued next pagecontentsR OBERT A DAMSON The Speaking Page13 AREN A TTARD 19 UDITH B EVERIDGE 17 USAN B OWER 14 ETER B OYLE 19 JOANNEBURNS audition 8T OM C LARK 20 ENNIFER C OMPTON Dear Les MTC C RONIN 18 ARYLINE D ESBIOLLES Poemes Saisonniers 15 UNO G EMES three photographs12Ð13 HILIP H AMMIAL 10 ATHIELYN J OB 20 OHN K INSELLA 19 NTHONY L AWRENCE 12 OHN M ATEER The Norm 2P ETER M INTER Create new morphemes: An interview with John Kinsella & Tracy Ryan 63 reviews20L ES M URRAY The Lunar Lake1016 ARK OÕF LYNN Postcards from the Bottom 12 VANGE LIA A P APADOPOULOS Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean 4M ARK R EID Ode to South Beach 7P HILIP S ALOM Inclusiveness, Dunedin4H UGH T OLHURST Epithalamion 7K IRSTEN T RANTER Train AUREN W ILLIAMS 16221723 The NormBut when I saw herÔmy first fuckÕin the supermarket bothof us doing our weekly chorethe place polished by fluoro-greenwas not so much a maze as a galleryof itemized lust. HereÕsa black pen, draw barcodes onmy forehead, Quickly, SheÕspassing . . . IÕd had visions:maternal heritage strobedfrom her fleshy face that nighther loosened bra revealed indifferentif glowing lunar skin. My heartwas singing like dawnbirds inestablished suburbs.She took my virginity intoher with a tough kitchenhandÕs grip,gnawed me with muscle.too much beer. She my longing here in this supermarketin this exchangeable city isthe faceÕs inevitablesighting me then turningthe daze normal. John Mateer cordite N¼ 1page 3 Dear Les,I think you ought to write a poem BUSH POET AT DEATHÕS DOOR.I wonder what deathÕs door looks like.ve been there, in fact stepped through it Ð to be precise in an ambulance stopped at the red lightsnext to Kilbirnie Post OfÞce Ðbut I donÕt rWhat I am sorry for is my mother heard them say Ð s goneÐ or Ð ve lost herNot nice for a mother to hear.But I was really ready to go.A history assignment on the Weimar Republic Ð you know how boring the Weimar Republic was andly still is.For my khars sake I spent ys of my life writing a play about Hitler.ive my excess Ð I am loosed on a tide of red wine and Van MorrPOETIC CHAMPIONS COMPOSE.He is a good guy VI can forgive anything except boredom kills.Keep meaning to say to you phrase Ð ything was bnt up on re-entryÐ as if you we a staror a piece of space junk falling back to earNot quite slipped the surly bondsRemember what happened when Reagan quoted that?the look on that mother and fs face as they watched their daughter explode in space.I saw a meteorite falling towds Bowral one night.I duckMuch good that would do me.I am so glad I hope you are as glad as I am that you are in postcode 2429.Van is singing MOTHERLESS CHILD.I didnÕt bargain with God Ð I was quite Þrm about it.Do what you will with him and send him bace was no shifting me on that point.d rather you came to my funeral than I came to ys what it always comes down to isnÕt it?Am I going to be holding MattÕs hand as he dies or is he going to be holding mine?IÕm just going to get another glass of wine.Perhaps this is a poem.I may slap it on the machine and press the save bPOEM OF THANKSGIVING.w it is all going away because I am thinking of line length.DRINK MORE PISS. TURN UP VNot people die but worlds die with them. o excuse me that just slipped out.)Neil said write a haiku for Les and this poem has only 17 syllabbut I donÕt know which 17 are the ones that make kdang!but you are alive and I donÕt care if you have lost your net and canÕt catch those poems any moret care if you walk on your knees for the rest of your life search in the dust for grains of wheatand those helicopters that you tried to wave away we you in Vietnam or we they giant be you still at DEATHÕS DOOR what I can never be an Australian? no one will ever know whyyou waved those helicopters away I heard you cough when they threw the phone down on the desk Ðcough Mr Murray thatÕs right cough.You tried so hard to cough. You couldnÕt. You couldnÕt rw to cough up those helicopters. Then you red. You coughed from a vy long way away.And I cheered on the other end of the lineÐ good on yer Les cough up the feeding tube itÕs all good pud from now on good pud!ve.God is good.What we truly want we can have.Then we must let it live in the light of its own nature.Or we kill it all over again.I canÕt believe how much I am raving on. This is all a letter you write and donÕt send.I wish evyone could sit in this room of mine and feel what I am feeling.It feels something like bCan I publish this poem Les? Can I? Can I?Sometimes I think the poems we write are only the thin shadows of what we think and feel.The poems are like equations that canÕt prove the wd starved approximations of what we grip ontos all that thinking about line length evything we hang onto and that hangs onto us is w Jennifer Compton Subhuman Redneck Poems as a whole, however, isdominated by an altogether different style of poem.off-the-cuff style. At their best these poems areof resentments. If, to quote the backcover blurb,the wellsprings of modern politics and cultureÓ it allsounds uncomfortably like the profundities of PaulineHanson. At his best Murray is the equal of Seamusthe speciÞc, of what is close to him; known people,the mantle of national prophet his writing becomesopinionated, confusing and decidedly inferior. It isnÕtjust that I disagree with his opinions (insofar as I canthis book are just damn bad poems. Sounding-offprejudices, telling not showing, jumping incoherently, T he poems of MurrayÕs I am objecting topoems of which there are examples in Walcott orHeaney, as much as in Murray. Heaney or Walcottnever seem imprisoned by resentments or sufÞcientlyone or two poems there would be no need tobrilliant, a large number Ð the majority Ð are fair tomediocre, and 18 are more-or-less bad. The poems Irefer to include ÔA Brief HistoryÕ, ÔGreen Rose TanÕ,of KnockÕ, ÔOn the present slaughter of feral animalsÕof MurrayÕs sad hubris is ÔThe BeneÞciariesÕ, anMurrayÕs is a curious case of genius. I have oftenthought of the similarities and contrasts betweenan enormous facility in the coining of words, PabloNeruda. Both Neruda and Murray have the ability topoem. In NerudaÕs Elemental Odes it is an instinct forbeauty that guides the images, a sensuous feel for the continued on page 4 continued on page 5 page 4corditeN¼ 1 S PINIFEX P RESS http://www.publishaust.net.au/~spinifexSuniti Namjoshi, poet & interactive fabulist, author of Building Babel, in Australia for the Perth WriterÕs FestivalWee Girls:Women Writing from an Irish Perspectiveed. Lizz Murphy Ð a moving and often amusing collection of poetry &prose by international award-winning writersemail:spinifex@publishaust.net.au ¥ phone:(03) 9329 6088 ¥fax: (03) 9329 9238 Inclusiveness, Dunedinfor Ivan KlimaThey tell you: all the seasons in a dayMist overnight: in early morning like a silver lid.To someone unused to it mist seems to passright through the body, by which I meanBy night IÕll stand by the sceniclookout and mist will climb up from the ground.Now the air is shiny and soon clear,across at the point the albatross are circlingand seals roll in the kelp like workersat belts and pulleys under water, the shadows shifting, evanescent machines.The seals are freeand yet are not, the underwater holds themanthropomorphised: I see and so does Klimathe charm we put there, the sensuous rollingbut the water closing over . . .unforgettable, his books were typed out oneby one and passed around. Passed onin secret makes them intimate, the words like shadows, on paper so thin under the finger-tips they seem to enter you all that is Klima wants to take a photo but the seals have moved offthe rockface and the light is fading fastinto the mid-day rain. In ten more minutesYes, what they say, is happening.In the city I walk alone in sudden warmththe streets are grey and piecemealthe slopes as dull as England. Two men lean outan upper level of an incomplete building and hammer away at tin. ItÕs high, dangerous,surreal above the shopfronts like a great boxof lollies wrapped in cellophane.I am walking pastthe church when the rain is sudden, heavy,and I rush in, imagining the gloomy day-pews.But an organist is hidden head-down in BachÕsA Minor fugue, the earth is being thrown about.Bach knew. The pipes are full, unstopped, the chords Philip Salom shake me then go silent, the air like dry land,all life gone. Then huge, again, unrushed, thegrowling bass and the high keys like everyworldat once.If only Klima were here, but he isspeaking to another group remembering the past, his countryÕs Ôcounter revolutionÕand passing hand to hand like touching echoeshis ironic first editions and sooneveryone asking what heÕll write aboutnow the communists have gone... and onlysome will see how such presumptionAt the scenic lookoutthe stillness moves right in. The bay is losingbrush-strokes, blue and green: Toss Woolaston/loose and rough Cezanne. I stare at the swell,wanting it to surge against me like the Bach.But it fades. Everything is changing. The mistclimbs up from the valley, sealing off the open ground. The night. The dark. P HILIP S ALOM perfection of everything. In Murray itÕs alwaysbeen an instinct for wit, opposition, energy,forcefully, hitting, in the majority of his work,towards the truth in an original, anti-sentimentalhas an enormous openness towards all things, allwing Neruda and vaguely right-wing Murray.poetic terms? Does it affect the quality of theirare Academics, Intellectuals, trendies, modernism,American inßuences, the city, atheism. Whenexample, a speciÞc dictator, the United FruitCompany or US Imperialism. NerudaÕs focus,though, was with the victims, with ordinarypeople, not with a quest for quick villains toblame. For the right wing conservative trying toremain there as an unfocussed series of smallangers. Such surface anger contrasts with thesentiment of solidarity in Neruda or theidentiÞcation with the outsider as in Blake orVallejo. Quite simply I would argue that thepolitics of a Blake, a Neruda, a Vallejo enabledthem to tap into a much deeper layer ofwhat one has already got, about the quest forthat is wrong. By its nature such an ideology isdisconnected, based on dividing people. Contrastthis with the socialism and commitment toCommunism of Vallejo in an age when idealisticIt is partly a question of where poetry at its bestcomes from Ð its need to escape the opinionatedmind we all largely carry with us. Poetry that isus to the core of things. What Murray isattempting in the political poems of Redneck Poems is essentially a gifted illustration ofopinions and, not surprisingly I would argue, hisgifts fail him. Poetry that works taps intosomething deeper than what we consciouslyunderstand. However painful its material, suchwrote in a 1924 letter to Melchor Fernandezvery sad happiness of being a poet! And nothing cordite N¼ 1page 5 when writing and something beyondoneself dictates the poem, Þnds ahappened through political poems Ðbut only where poets havesurrendered themselves tofeelings and social reality. The sadthing in Subhuman Redneck Poems transformation in writing of his ownfamily, he falls well below standard J aims at depth rather than proliÞcoutput with some nine years workcontained in the 86 pages of herwhat a contemporary Rilke mightmarked by a natural afÞnity for thebeautiful rather than the clever. Thiscommitment to the creation of beauty isnot in its basis a matter of prettiness orproduct of the quality of attention shegives to things and people. In the bestElephant Odes and the Buddha Cycle,observation becomes both a spiritualexercise and a moral challenge. UnlikeMurray, BeveridgeÕs poems donÕt seem topoems use the process of creation itself to explore inways quite distinct from personal reminiscence orrational analysis. Her style synthesises a wide range ofpredominantly American poets Ð people like StanleyMoss, Charles Wright, Philip Levine, Galway Kinnell,develops a voice that prizes beauty, pathos, accuracy,formal conciseness, the textures and smells of things.demonstration of poetry as enactment; the measuredmeasured exactness of the poet balancing each line,little, Þnding an exact course from Mozart to thebeggar, from the village ditch to the names of God;seeing this man as wholly other, allowing all politicalinterpretations to have their place, not wanting tothat bears its legacy to Rilke but is conÞdently in theidiom of today. Another Þne poem in the book isÔTarepatiÕ Ð a lavish sensual poem that carries a greatsadness in its core. Equally compelling is ÔAshokÕ, aIt would be hard, I think, for anyone with a genuine(ÔPunjabÕ, ÔMan washing on a railway platform outsideDelhiÕ, ÔTarepatiÕ, ÔThe Dung CollectorÕ, ÔThe TeaVendorÕ and ÔAshokÕ), the Elephant Odes and theÔFive BellsÕ by Slessor, MurrayÕs ÔAn AbsolutelyOrdinary RainbowÕ or some of Robert GrayÕs poemsfocus. Style and content cohere. The beauty of thein them, a layer of uncertainty that operates throughlanguage. The individual voice itself seems to resonateWhat then of the other poems in this book?many of these poems suffer from an excessivelysome of the poems struck me at Þrst, but after severalreadings I feel that at most only two or three poemsmerit such criticism. A more accurate reading revealsgradually that the tone itself, the voice which is thepersonality of the poet, creates a certain attitude orthe beautiful and the possible, between longing andacceptance. Poems like ÔThere is a Haunting MusicÔHawkesbury EgretÕ, ÔPythamidesÕ Last ClassÕ, ÔMarcoPoloÕs Concubine Speaks OutÕ, ÔTo the IslandsÕ andhis PoemsÕ are much more than exercises in style. InÔThere is a haunting musicÓ, for example, re-iterationex-quisitely beautiful music that rises out of banality,that is sustained by a work-a-day world intrinsicallyindiff-erent and hostile to it. ÔThe Peacock on theLawnÕ captures being at its most difÞcult, the sense ofsomething about to collapse, sustained only with greateffort. ÔLooking at the photo of an American poetÕcomfortably sets itself up on the same wave-length asthe best present-day American poets. A surety of tone ve yre alive and we nearly lost you but we hung on we hung on we hung onI hope you are never sorry for thisis Australia just a vy little like the Weimar rlic? Just a little. Lotta guys doing things.I canÕt get out of this poem it is writing me I am glad for me I am glad for yI am glad for the crowd at 2429 I am glad for the PRINT CULIÕm like just glad all over glad all over meve alive alive not dead alive there you are the simple mind that lives in the body that livdear Les why did you frighten us what would I do if I could not Þnd you if you abandoned usMORE WINEy does matter they all talk a lot of crap about poetry but it matters more than anything they saye they hate what lives in the poets the thing that doesnÕt live in them so they canÕt knowwhat it is but they can hate it but we mt let them oh dear Les I am down to one Þnger I havelost the caps lock key CAPS LOCK KEY found it okay Les deal give us some more of those pomesmilch cow milch cow takes so long to Þnd DEATHÕS DOOR canÕt leave it at that selÞsh selÞsh mypapa tried to write the poems 30 ys tailing out and the nailing machine in THE BOX FAthis machine is so much part of me as I type one Þnger I type wds I type message I type meaningo handed now coming in for the big Þnish and hope that I can get the rope around its wild headwhen you gave yself up to poetry you gave yself up to us you might as well relax and enjoyyou have more personae than I have had hot dinners and we can call you a cab in the rain but noone can do it for us like you can do it for us and if we quibble and squabble itÕs just because justwell you know whyI canÕt Þnsih I canÕt Þnsihint mispre is nothing like the mind of a poet purest manifestation of whatevdo it for my father who couldnÕt write the poem he had to wrI dodo it because you can do itdo it because wre waiting at the bus stop and wre bortell us about the moment when you gave yself upt belong to yself any more but belonged to usd really like to know about thatMORE WINE MORE WINE FINSIHED THE BOTTLE PLENTY MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROMcome back to tell uscome back to tell usI donÕt think we can save himwell and we could and wve let plenty go you know wve let them go bright starsso heÕs gone and heÕs gone etc.but we dragged you back you owe us joy in the breath joy in the body like space dust that bin the sky over Bowral falling towds us if we are afraid forgive us live like we are afraid tos what you promised us wt it isnÕt that what you promised us evything evything evs just forget you are a terrifyingly good poets just welcome you back into the trÞnd a place for you by the Þre (next to my fe you are where you belong you belong to uswe belong to you itÕs all just one big thingVan Morrison sings the wine will never run outÞll the glass drink with no fear (next ywhat can they do to us?we who have died alr Peter Boyle: Doggerel and grace continued on page 7 J UDITH B EVERIDGE Accidental Grace page 6corditeN¼ 1 John Kinsella has published eight volumes ofpoetry, most recently Lightning Tree (FremantleArts Centre Press) and The Undertow(ARC/UK). He has won numerous awards,including the WA PremierÕs and SA John Brayawards for poetry, and was a recipient of a1996 Young Australian Creative Fellowship.John Kinsella also edits the journal Tracy RyanÕs first and second books, Bluebeard in Drag (1996) areboth published by Fremantle Arts CentrePress. At the time of the interview both JohnKinsella and Tracy Ryan were working at theVaruna WritersÕ Centre on three weekwriting fellowships. Having just publishedtheir work together in a double issue of theVaruna New Poetry broadsheet, I began bydiscussing with them the processes involved incollaborative writing. a threadhis olive suit shows a thread come loose, buttons sewn cheaply. his lapels curlwith a double-breasted edge. my gaze feels vicious. his grey suit sits ßat with a woollen look. her thin-soled shoes are crumpling towards the point. her mascara hangs heavy, she could be sleeping. I begin to understand the huge shelf of magazines at the station, the irritation of over the shoulder reading.when I step on the carriage the air is thick with more than the usual smell ofdark tunnels. there is a coiling around the air. sit and wait for it to spring.then it begins. she starts to sing, loudly with no joy. I have caught myself humming to my walkman at times and suppressed my ticking Þngers. but she is singing, just call me angel of the morning. the stare of the passenger continues from every face, a blank. the air stiffens with the noise of her rough tone in the shake of the train.the windowthe water shows in a glimpse through rose bayÕs greenery and then the galleryÕs elegance. I want to Þnd domesticity in the close windows of the nearby houses in this short passage through open air. the grey house is promising. today the curtains are different. there is no seeing through the freshly painted walls, a humming icy fridge, a white bed billowing with muslin, a metal sculpture. someone stands, and writes, and goes to the fridge and considers, and sits to face away from the rail line close to the window. back into the tunnel with a rattle.a short distancewater pours down the glass door at the end of the carriage. the small space of light before the next dark enclosure shines with the wet colour of rainbreak, and heavy green plants are climbing the tunnelÕs shoulder. this is a sight to contemplate but the rushing archway makes it a glimpse. through and out again, the park is damp grass and a mist has covered all the taller buildings. my ankles know the cold I will feel when I step out into it, the streetÕs puddles shining in the hardened early light. the greyness stretches across the close sky, no sight past the next block. the sky is a wide cloud of fog as low as the ground in the short distance. Kirsten Tranter continued on page 8Create new morphemes! J OHN K INSELLA & T RACY R YAN Peter Minter cordite N¼ 1page 7 There is no wastage here, no slackness, just the sameinsistence you get in the best American poetry onOne of the main achievements of Beveridge in thisbe elephants or a household cook, domesticity or themistress of a leg-endary traveller. ÔThe FishermanÕ, forÒonly the moon / now offer-ing them sight over thewaves / as they too lift their arms into the sky.Ó O is perhaps the most intellectuallycomplex. Especially in the title poemand in the Peter Henry Lepus poems,Harry reveals an extraordinary ability to work acrossphilosophy, ecology,memory, ruralAustralia, the theoryof modern music,the interplay bet-mirrors the depthscontained withinevery person. Andall this in a vern-acular language thatious. Playful andwitty but equallypoignant and dis-in a style that isquirky, unexpected,both earthily Aust-ralian and comfortably cosmopolitan. Above all herpoems have the cluttered knotty feeling of someoneThe life on the water and the life beneath opens with aprose-like extract on madness that reads like aonly to be interrupted by a colloquial non-sequitur.Then, as in a musical composition, comes theannouncement of the main theme, the drowning of amusic and a radio announcerÕs voice. At this pointa purpose Ð they never become mechanical devices.Section 2 of the poem exempliÞes the exactitude ofpeopleÕs mindsÓ, a vagueness that undercuts loss itself.The section has a complexity that makes it rewardingreading in the way that good philosophy is. Theknottiness of her diction, its delightful toughness isthe mindÕs constructs are reality. And just when youas if each phrase, each reality was a bubble leading tojust a game. Through all the poemÕs shifts you stepdeeper and deeper into its fundamental ideas: theuncountableness of the real, the vagueness, theWhy write a long poem about a rabbit? Why shouldrelative of the classic ChildrenÕs Book character, Peteris that the journey we make through identifying withany other being, the sheer act of becoming any otherwhat Blake is about in The Songs of Innocence.and senses of a rabbit is an extraordinary leap ofimagination. In ÔAn art historian with a church for aburrowÕ Harry Þlters Nazism and the Second Worldwhat is serious blur, become confused. If Peter Henryus as they shift the ground underneath us soskiÕ, ÔMother with BroomÕ and ÔFrom HIV to Fullway the opening two poems are remarkable. At timespoems seem too whimsical like ÔBest LiesÕ or ÔChorusand ProtagonistsÕ, at times too strident Ð as whenall . . . (1987)Õ. One of the best poems in the latersections is ÔWoman as Jug/ Blue Lady PoemÕ whichan outcast alcoholic given to violence, withoutAll in all, J.S. HarryÕs The life on the water and the lifebeneath is a remarkable book of imagination, humour J ames TaylorÕs Smoke Proofs begins with a similarKeatsÕ classic romantic poem, ÔOde to anightingaleÕ; that heady synthesis of love, deathand though it contains some half-dozen very ÞneÔTasmaniaÕ unites early colonial history with food. ItsÔFoxgroundÕ and ÔRime Þeld near TitaniaÕ convey ahuman and the animal. Many of TaylorÕs poems have continued on page 9 Ode to Sth BeachThe remains of the pierstick in your miserly west coast wash.The factory burns in corrugationsamidst the rabbity scrub, its cyclonefencing rusts on the noxious perimeter.I have strayed from the primarycolours of your playground,from the preened lawns & pines.I am walking the dog beach, old Mannersarse up/snout down on the trailof some vermin or sea-creature long spent.I am giddy with aroma, with brine,from the oceanÕs passing window.I am watching the low profile of Rottnest,falling again for dusk over water,the portÕs orange bloommirrored at Rockingham.I am mourning the Indian OceanÕstatty border, my lines snagging on the hem.I am clinging to my sense of you& your fishermen whohang in there. Mark Reid As the century snarls towards a full stop,living together is frightening:the young donÕt marry because theyÕre scared.I wouldnÕt do it this latebut some kids still go the whole shebang,a couple I love did it on New YearÕs Dayin a clearing in the Dandenongsas hungover as the worst of their guests,so romantic they refused a gift,requested a wedding poem, sweet fucking idiots. Hugh Tolhurst JS H ARRY The Life on the water... page 8corditeN¼ 1 wouldnÕt see in a zoo here because they run wild, andshe was very excited about this, saying Òlook at thesecreatures!Ó For me it was quite funny to realise thatthere were these two different landscapes going on, thatwhat she thought was artifice was natural for me, theway the two collided. I think thereÕs actually a lot of thatin the book but it rarely gets picked up on. ItÕs a differentkind of emphasis from JohnÕs. JohnÕs is far moreanalytical and descriptive of whatÕs outthere, while mineÕs incidental.jk Also my animals in the landscape arepeople. Those funny creatures runningaround are people. I find humans in theÒlandscapeÓ, a thing of their owncreation, quite hard to reconcile. MineÕs aconstant quest to work out how humanscan rest in a landscape. ItÕs a constantbattle.pm In poetry landscape rests inlanguage, and IÕm interested in how youactually approach writing your poetry interms of craft. Do you think about themateriality of the language as alandscape, the way in which thelandscape that is observed by the sensesoccupies language, or occupies the poet in language?tr IÕll just say something briefly because I think that willbe more closely tied to what John does than to me. Thisbecomes more evident to me in poems that are aboutlandscapes other than the one I come from. Forinstance, in that poem about Basel, and another poemabout Bern, the other language involved does somethingto pin down what it is thatÕs foreign about the landscapefor me. So the child using Swiss language whichresembles English is an inherent feature of that. InÔBernÕ, the place name means ÔbearsÕ and the poem isabout bears and how the city was founded on the killingof bears. In a way the language, on the level of justappropriating little phrases and tags, encapsulates whatthe poemÕs trying to do. I tend to write poetry whichappears to be an invisible language, less linguisticallyupfront. But thatÕs an illusion.jk My language usage is entirely about mapping, andsurveying the so-called landscape. Language for mebecomes a landscape. I explore the valleys and themountains of speech, the pitch scale and so on.Language exists as a thing in itself. In examining thisthing in itself yourealise that thewriting of poetry islike a palimpsest.ThereÕs anundercurrent ofmeaning ineverything nomatter how muchyou try andseparate it off as athing in itself. Withme languagebecomes adecoding device, ameans by which Ican examinesomething visual orconceptual andactually illuminateit, so I can showyou this picture of this place IÕve seen by usinglanguage. ItÕs literally a process of translation anddecoding.pm So the processes of translation and decoding wouldmean, in terms of the materiality of the language itself,that what can be known of the physical and emotionallandscapes is in some way limited by the choices we canmake within the language weÕre using?jk Well, the answer to that is to invent new words, inventnew phraseologies, create new morphemes.tr Which is what youÕre always doing anyway as a poet.jk Exactly. You are. That is the call of the poet. Theconfines of language are constantly to be changed andstretched, and I think that in a work like Syzygy, one ofmy experimental works which is very influenced by theAmerican Language poets, I try to take the boundary ofstatement, observation and recounting that observationinto the implication, so youÕre crossing between what-isinto the what-might-be constantly. I donÕt see anyboundaries. But you donÕt have to be an experimentalpoet linguistically, as I am sometimes, to do that. I thinkany good poem actually does that by inference.tr I actually find that anything veering toward what Iwould call experimental in what I write I tend to keep formyself. IÕm not quite sure why that is. It might be partly alack of confidence at working in thatmode. I am concerned with howlanguage is used to constructrealities. One of the things thatinterests me is the way language isused in institutions like psychiatry toÒcreateÓ a certain kind of person. Forexample, if you write in a report Òaffectflat distant,Ó youÕre on your way todefining somebody as schizophrenic,and that could be used to describesomeone who may not even be that.So IÕve experimented a bit with writingpoems using that kind of languagebecause that for me is a realm where Ican do the exploring for myself, beforeI set out to make a different structure,and I would defy anyone to say thatthat structure wasnÕt equally material and as muchartifice as a linguistically emphatic poem. It is the samesort of thing, just doing a different thing with it.pm Poetry is a place in which new ways of seeing thelandscape and new ways of defining subjectivity can bedeveloped.tr Sure. I really believe that of poetry, and I think thatÕsa large part of why I do it. I actually believe that of all art,too. jk I donÕt think that through poetry or through any formof art you can actually expand a landscape. I mean thelandscape is as expanded as it can ever be. ItÕs just amatter of seeing things a little more clearly, or actuallyseeing things you donÕt notice at first. You go into aroom thatÕs completely empty and you say Òthis room isempty.Ó Now on close observation youÕll find dust, youÕllfind dustmites, youÕll find many things there. There aremany things you donÕt see. Of course this is why anenvironment can be damaged so recklessly withoutregard to anything else. People donÕt see things. Theysimply donÕt. They see a dirty great bloody tree and theythink ÒthatÕs in the wayÓ and they knock it over. Theimplications of knocking that tree down, apart from thething itself being removed, can be horrendous andusually are. So I think what the artist must do, theresponsibility of the artist, is to illuminate the unseen.ThatÕs not a Romantic notion. ItÕs a highly practicalnotion.tr ItÕs almost like a Russian Formalist notion of thethingyness of things, making the stone stonier.jk Well, the Russian Formalists were great.tr In the same way that you can make a person look likea schizophrenic by saying their affect is flat and distant,you can make a landscape look like something to bedestroyed by saying itÕs got no churches in it, or thereÕsno culture there, as was done in this country. Thelanguage in that sense is almost, not this simplistically,but almost controlling whatÕs being done. You canÕtseparate the two.pm And at the present time there appears to be arenewed scepticism toward the potential for landscapeor experience to be adequately described by lyricalpoetry...jk Yes, and thereÕs a couple of things IÕd say here,linking up with what was said earlier. ThereÕs thegenuine ÒstrangenessÓ aspect of language, and thereÕsthe idea of the word itself Ð that in a single word one canhave infinite meaning, and so on. I think the limitationsof expressing the landscape in any specific form, inparticular the lyric, have been well attested andaccounted for. A solution that postmodernism hasthrown up is hybridising and running between genres Ðpicking out the eyes of the best of the best and creatingsome sort of new form that apparently shows ussomething new. ThatÕs interesting, and I actually do that.Hybridising is a big thing for me, but, in a sense, you cando no more than utter a truth, and a lyrical poem canquite adequately convey genuine strangeness (and/orthe word itself). All the mysteries can be entailed in oneword, in one utterance. The idea of ÒBabelÓ confusingthe one language and making it many other languages,getting those many languages together and gettingeverything said, gets you no further forward than wouldthe use of one language. These are just differentprocesses that come into being according mainly to thecultural environment at a particular time, not so muchbecause weÕve discovered new ways of seeing things.tr There is a weird conception about, especially amonguniversity students, rather than teachers, that thereÕsone form or one genre or one tendency to be preferredover another, as if it were purer or Ôthe thing to doÕ,usually because itÕs seen as the avant-garde at thatmoment. This is something that John and I often talkabout, that itÕs very strange that people think they haveto be restricted to one particular school of thought, thatit isnÕt all there for the taking. IÕm very wary, I supposefrom having studied literary theory, of how every decadethinks itÕs got the answer and laughs at the previousone, that thereÕsonly one way ofdoing things.pm What youÕreboth expressinghere appears alsoto inform youractivities as editorand producer ofthe literary journalSaltand the smallpress Folio, bothbased inFremantle. Theidea of all genresbeing, potentially,equally accessibleor equally valid,seems tocontradict aneditorial statementmade in the introduction to a popular 1980Õs anthologyof Australian poetry, that the purpose of any anthology isto give a Òreasonable flavour of somebodyÕs work, soyou can then perhaps read more widely.Ó To me thisassumes a fairly pedagogical, predictable approach toanthologising Ð that an editor can educate a readershipin whatÕs best within a single genre, within a single text.Considering your approach to editing the Saltanthologies, which in a more open sense appears to cheap crisp and pocket sizerecorded sounds of nature onstream waterfall river desertsnowfall rainforest swamp; birdcallcrocodile stallion snake and Ð the eternal crystal spring: slip theminto your ears quicker than you can zipup those jeans hey hereÕs a new onetropical sunsets shit how musta sunset sound the brochureÕsadvertising krakatoa meetsmururoa love songs, with kakadumining melodies to be released in the fall;meditational inspirational recreationalinvocational soon sons of jimi hendrixstart recording acid rain throughone auditory canal and out the other earssprout coral cactus thin little needlesof pine the headÕs awashwith sand and tumbleweed birds thatswim underneath reefs Þsh riding horsesthrough mountains crocodiles eatingsnow joanne burnsInterview: Ryan & Kinsella (cont) continued on page 10 poems.ÓÐJK J OHN K INSELLA The Silo T RACY R YAN Bluebeard in Drag cordite N¼ 1page 9 great energy and wit. His poems challenge us to viewpoetry as we would view modern art Ð accepting thatlarger school of American post-modernist poetics Ðbest instead of the abstractionism that irritates me inPerhaps the best three poems in the book are ÔBlindthe Oyster EaterÕ andÔThrowing Objects inAnnandaleÕ. This lastto make special, tocelebrate lovemaking,Ð to savour it assomething charged withindividuality and passion.The only way to conveythe sudden leaps andstrange beauty of thisIn places, notably in the ÔGeryonÕ section and in theÔCMYK WeddingÕ, I felt there was too muchPalestinian invasionÕ Pound and the Olson of theand say ÔPound and OlsonÕ or ÔMichael PalmerÕ. JSSecondly there were several poems where I could notfollow what was happening. ÔAustralis dibus XIIIÕ, forsome unidentiÞed gay should try women again? Whyuse the word ÒslutsÓ? Is this meant to be aboutAustraliaÕs misogynistic past? I felt equally confusedrape, molestation of children open up art, knowledge,However, Smoke Proofscontains many exquisite andmy lack of sympathy with post-modernism. The bookÔDance on the tempered coultersÕ, ÔAfter the SankoreMSÕ, ÔHoughmagandyÕ and ÔA hint of juiceÕ arecelebrations of physicality in the long tradition ofamorous poetry that is as much a part offeminist poetry (think of Sappho, think ofJames TaylorÕs Smoke Proofs offers us a strong P hilip HodginsÕ deservedly acclaimedÞnal book Things happenconsists ofanecdotal poems, a small butimportant group of disturbinglandscape poems thatfuse the external andsequence of poems ofextraordinary powerthat give voice toleukaemia. In the Þrstsection of the book,ÒRuralÓ, many of thepoems are in rhymeand describe smallincidents of countrylife. Mostly thesepoems remain at thelevel of description yetthey have an enormous freshness, a richpoem, ÔA JillarooÕ, for example, closes asfashioned ballad form but brings considerableIn most of the poems in the Þrst section thepoet remains within the world of communalfor my taste, too little transformation of thematerial and too much reliance on thewillingness of the reader to share a collectivenostalgia for the bush. ÔAn image of theMurrayÕ, for example, is a well written yarn.teeth dropped in the Murray. ÔThe DrinkersÕhole. ItÕs well done, well captured: Hattie thesoundÓ, yet it all remains at the level ofexcess generality or intensity on the one handthose difÞcult areas of subjective judgement.vividness of writing in HodginsÕ rural poems,another might be put off by the ßat tone, itsanecdotal nature and its limited objective:is too original, too gifted, takes too muchprosaic. Just as the way he uses rhyme, his continued on page 11 J AMES T AYLOR a road train tugs on the rightist strings and precedent is damned like tokenism,organs from prisoners and sustaining life to promote suffering, suspicion the family value, a mystery prize NO LONGER on the wheel of fortune, childcarekeeping the nuclear family mushrooming like a bad joke in an ideal economy, plays pleasantly unfolding to capacity audiences who think theyÕre watching a bloodsport, conÞrming their eruption from malaise. David Malouf says Australia phenomenon, while that Òweepy warblerÓ Mariah Carey says when I watch TV and see all those starving children all over the world, it just makes me want to cry. I mean, IÕd like to be as thin as that, but not with all those Aboriginal family is forcedof the Indian PaciÞc at the request of the ÒcleanerÓ passengersand Manning Clark was seen to wear the red ribbon of the Order of Lenin and as such is posthumously elevated to the ranks of Russian Spy. They cutting the fat from government. ItÕs a jungle out there! The twenty-dollar dameÕs claim to utopia as the regional declines into nomadic wanderings. Now we donÕt need visas to tour wheat subsidies and open markets colluding on a test zone called Woomera or Uruguay, war brides on the catwalk and an increase in the military budget, portraits of the Queen sneaking into the national pie like additive codes. Let us marvel at the national Panopticon, let us consider the narrow coastal strip turning like a pinwheel around The Rock, Uluru, the tower of rapid eye movement in the new parlance Ð explorer stock laying claims to its spoils, Ayers Rockof a new White Paper on immigration. The kangaroos in the South West are struck down by blindness: crashing into wandoo and jarrah, caught up in wire fences, mowed down by tractors, drowning in dams. A turning point.old timers allegorically maintain. Speculation inhabiting the virus-laden air of Kangaroo Island, a semantic Peter Boyle: Doggerel and grace (cont) continued on page 11 page 10corditeN¼ 1 value the publication of a multiplicity of different genres,do you think the era of ÒThe Great Australian PoetryAnthologyÓ is over, or have the rules just changed?jk IÕve edited Salt since 1990, over eight issues, andtwo of them have been rather large and substantialanthologies. In terms of our working together, Tracy hasbeen involved in the production of the last two issues,including the Salt Reader, and although I make all theeditorial decisions and have a vision of what themagazine is, the production side of it actually isaneditorial role, because in the process of setting poems,even though theyÕve already been chosen, thereÕs a lotof discussion that goes on about the way things are...tr ItÕs intertwined...jk ItÕs intertwined! This is about collaboration. WhoÕs tosay one is more responsible than the other? Sure, Ichoose the things, I make the decisions in that way, butTracy makes all the production decisions and I see thatas every bit as important. Now this says a lot about myattitude to anthologising. I donÕt write editorials. I writevoluminous amounts for other journals and so on, butnot editorials for the journal I edit. I believe the pieces Iinclude speak for themselves, and I believe in totaleclecticism Ð- the best of what I can get in any field. IÕllpublish a Language poet next to a purely lyrical poet.Definitions of anthologies are best provided by the waythe works sit in a volume together. Editing is aboutjuxtaposition. And the interesting thing about the SaltReader, and IÕve had a lot of feedback from overseasabout this, is that people say that itÕs incrediblyrevolutionary, because without being polemical, withoutmaking didacticstatements of whatshould be, it hasactually created anentirely newatmosphere byallowing the poetryto be itself. This isopposed to yourquote from theother anthology,which theoreticallywants people toread the same sortof poetry, or whatthat person seesas good poetry.This is something Iam totally against.Poetry createsitself through theaspect or themedium of theartist, but issomething which is constantly changing and definingaccording to, as I said before, the cultural environmentitÕs being created in. The idea of Salt is that it allows thereader to investigate. I offer the best I can get and thereader then makes the editorial decision, and I reallythink thatÕs the way it should be.tr The other thing thatÕs interesting to me about highlypolemical anthologies, which IÕm not saying I donÕt enjoyreading, is that they are very quickly extremely dated, sothey are useful in some ways as documents of whatpeople believed. This is similar to my comment earlierabout literary theory, that in the sixties they thought thatwhat they did in the fifties was bit funny. Likewise, if youlook at some of the anthologies that came out twenty orthirty years ago, all but one or two things havecompletely died. Things may be argued for as ÒgeniusÓ,then you never see them any more. All these things doin retrospect is chart the particular schools of thoughtthat weÕre at and sometimes actually throw up somereally interesting material that should have perhapspersisted. But thatÕs a different project from somethinglike Salt.jk Well of course what Salt does is chart all thoseschools of interest and ideology and potential all in theone volume. This doesnÕt mean that Salt publishesrandomly. Salt is highly selective and hard to get intobecause I try to choose the best in each field. Thatmeans as an editor I have to be aware of everythingthatÕs going on. People ask how can I decide a goodLanguage poet from a bad Language poet. Well, a goodLanguage poet is going to be someone who has a graspof theory, and if I canÕt see an awareness of thosethings in the verse then that isnÕt as effective as otherexamples in the same genre. With a lyrical poem, writtensay in four line stanzas and iambic pentameter, itÕsusually obvious whatÕs good and bad. So itÕs not amatter of randomness, itÕs highly selective, but it allowsall types to exist. IÕm a pragmatist by nature.pm This breaks down the assumption, which seems tobe characteristic of earlier anthologists, of the existenceof a particular generation of poets who hold a commonor related set of ideas and beliefs which can be thusanthologised. Do you think the idea of a generationalposition or a generational poetic, and IÕm referringobviously to that Generation of Ô68 thing, is basicallyirrelevant with regard to the important work thatÕs beingdone now?tr From my point of view it may have been more relevantto previous generations, but as the situation changes,the influences that go into your work are not just theideas of your own age group, which may be thepostmodern situation Ð youÕre drawing on everything atonce. So itÕs irrelevant to me.jk But in a sense itÕs perhaps more relevant to Tracythan it is to me because, as a feminist, Tracy is workingvery contextually within the boundaries of ÒprogressÓagainst the patriarchy, which is something measured bytime. IÕm a sympathiser and an empathiser with this. Soa feminist poetics works, in a sense, to a kind oftimetable of progress against patriarchal thingswhereas, in my case, itÕs slightly different in that, eventhough I am part of it of course, I try and see myself asbeing outside the patriarchy and a bit removed from timegenerally!tr Sure, but I think itÕs important to consider thatfeminism has been around for a long time, and itÕs notthe primary impetus for what I write, as is also the casefor a lot of women writers. In saying that, IÕm notdistancing myself from what a lot of people are afraid ofas Ôthe labelÕ. IÕve noticed that thereÕs a great tendencyamong women poets and women writers generally to beafraid of having that label attached to them, and IÕd liketo say that IÕm notafraid of it. I think that people should,if thatÕs what they are, say yes, thatÕs what I am, butthatÕs not all I am. So in one sense thereÕs a definitediscourse with which I identify, but itÕs very diverse andthereÕs a multiplicity of feminisms. For example I drawas much on Simone de Beauvoir, or Adrienne Rich Ð oneof whom is far older than I am and the other of whomdied ten years ago Ð as I do on people my own age.pm And the desire for anthologising, as it has appearedin the past as opposed to the Salt anthologies, has beencharacterised by a very linear, patriarchal sense ofprogression Ð this is poetry now and the future willdevelop from this point. Salt does appear to challengethis.jk In a nutshell! With the Salt Reader, I wanted andactually tried to solicit a lot more material by womenwriters. As an editor I wonÕt publish anything by anyparticular group if itÕs not good enough. ItÕs not a matterof filling space with 50% men and 50% women.tr ItÕs not tokenismjk No, itÕs not tokenism. As it happens, the breakdownwould be between about 30/35% women and the restmen. ThatÕs simply a reflection of what IÕm sent, and Ihave found over the years that I get a lot more mentrying a second time, after being rejected, than women. IdonÕt know why this is, but usually a lot of women poetswho have tried, and whom I have rejected because IhavenÕt found their work suitable, have not sent again, Me, Myself, No OtherItÕs me, myself, no other whoÕs lyingon this filthy mattress in this hospitalcorridor, cloudsick, humiliatedby their procedures, by the samplesthat theyÕve taken.&, yes,itÕs me, myself, no other who has but one intention: to make it perfectly clearthat my most ardent wish is to leave as I came Ðon my hands and knees, crawling.&, yes,itÕs yours truly, this humble petitionerthat you see before you who will crawl,naked, to each in turn, to eachof the mothers, to submit& myself, noother who will present you, madewith my own hands, of my hair, of dirtfrom under my nails, an effigy of myselfto do with as you will.& myself, noother, whoÕs stripped to the waistin this dim hole, who for twelve hours each nightshovels coal into a boiler Ð steamfor an engine that must be, can only bean engine of war.&, yes, itÕsme, no other, who, entering a roomthat I thought was empty, finds it fullof steamer trunks & in each, as I lift its lid, the evidence of a failed migration Ða blue snake, hibernating, obliviousto the intoxication of my flute.& me,alone, hugging myself, whoÕs crooninga lullaby as the ox is dismissed, as it sinksinto mist Ð the ox painted bluethat brought me here cradledin its horns.& myself, noother who, coming amongst strangers,can understand their language as ifit was my own, their discourseof dead horses, of empire, of excrement& myself, yourstruly, no other, who, at the endof a long journey, was given a tentin this camp of cowards, who tonight around a fire as we warm ourselves, ingratitude, in terror, will place on the lipsof each of my comrades a kissof betrayal. Philip HammialInterview: Ryan & Kinsella (cont) earlier aboutliterary theory,sixties theybit funny.Ó continued on page 14 The Lunar LakeThe moonÕs riddled Earth daycarried above black treespuzzles birds into trilling,makes beetles fly their cars.The lake on the dark side of that world is airless steel;its dry plate never recordsour brushstrokes of re-entrybut itÕs patent to the mindin its floodlit drink-quarries,a Hubble lens of white settlers. cordite N¼ 1page 11 I tÕs strange that rhyme is making a comeback atthe moment among many Australian poets.Robert Gray, Les Murray and Geoff Page Ð asas Milton and Wordsworth avoided rhyme in theirgreatest poems. ItÕs partly that gramatically uninßectedrhyme to quickly turn into a monotonous jogtrot.suspect itÕs no accident that, almost uniquely of theEuropean literatures I know, so many of the majorrhymed poetry has tended move into the background.language was half French Ð a Norman franglais thatthan in vocabulary or grammar. With Shakespeare,Keats, Shelley and others, rhyme often worked largelybecause they avoided the clip-clop effect by usinglike the sonnets of Shakespeare or the Odes of Keats.Whilst Blake did write great serious poetry in rhyme(ÔThe Songs of Innocence and ExperienceÕ), for hismoved into a form of prosepoetry roughly 100 yearsrhyming poets, Pope andByron, were satirists whoused rhyme for lighter morehumorous purposes. VikramSethÕsÕÒThe Golden GateÕsuccessfully continues thatin French, Spanish or Italian,rhyming seems neithercomfortable or natural forcontemporary English in itsmore inward moods. Yeatsand Auden could still produce great rhymed poetry inthe thirties, but as the century has progressed rhymeseems less and less viable. There are numerousEnglish is to trivialize. Of recent Australians whowhile Hodgins, using rhyme for more limitedbalance. Of Robert GrayÕs rhymed poetry, itÕs clearlynot doggerel, but Ð as with much good poetry Ð IÐ and I would be happy to have my misgivings aboutin the Þrst section which strike quite a differentin the CountryÕ, ÔA Decaying FormÕ, ÔA bird offrom the chirpiness of bucolic and, mostly, fromthe slightly sing-song edge of rhyme to presentsomething menacing and complex. The poetof rural nostalgia. ÔMidday HorizonÕ is anespecially moving evocation of a disturbingenvironment. A man is walking slowly behindfor me the quality of Things happenpages, there is not one poem that isnÕtextraordinary, powerful, challenging, disturbing.Even a rhymed poem ÔBlood ConnexionsÕ is athese poems is essentially a reßection ofthe Þnality of HodginsÕ situation. In aor loss or lifeÕs other appalling Òthingsthat happenÓ can write them in a waywriter facing an appalling situation.gifted journalism. The imagination, theunconscious, the instinctive need to bethrough the writer. Rhythm, sound,to Northern Ireland, to the victims of Italianotherness of all he is experiencing compared to Peter Boyle: Doggerel and grace (cont) P HILIP H ODGINS open hard though systematically over the red sands while the market watches with a hopeful eye Ðdoctors in Zaire report a breakout on the Ebola River Ð a georgic sucked dry of RNA. Lobbying freedom the seven proteins neither dead nor alive, a Þlovirus that takes a massacre to show its presence. Frank Fenner, hating small pox and rabbits, Þres a warning shot Ð ruptured a survey line in the jarrah forests moves a hundred metres when no-oneÕs looking, a farmer covets a dozen drums of DDT, threatening to use them Õcause Þfteen years ago he paid good money, new viroids sprouting from the paddockÕs surface, memory prompted by shifting fences. A comparative analysis of candidate strategies, the imposition of tariffs, contours snaking through the Venn diagram of shared usage, the eco-tourists and land share liabilities glossed-upin time for the election. Who says for merriment this planet is not well equipped? He needs to know exists. She knows already but her voice is disguised electronically. A shift in preferences results in the syndicÕs authority being strengthened; a facsimile on curling paper brings excitement to the editorÕs ofÞce: integration ends all racism! literacy standards for would-be immigrants.A considerable body of militia are hiding their weapons. the word. The roaded catchments heaped rolled and compacted ensure maximum run-off with little precipitation, this national psyche has been drought-proofed and well promoted. The Poetry Book Club ofAustralia was established inJanuary 1995 by a group of poets,poetry publishers and poetryorganisations. It is based on asimilar organisation, The PoetryBook Society, which was started inEngland by TS Eliot and others in1953. It has been established inAustralia to:¥ inform readers what poetry hasbeen published in Australia¥ give members access to the bestin contemporary poetry¥ assist poets by giving them accessto a larger readership¥ assist publishers with thedistribution of poetry.The Poetry Book Club aims toaddress the twin difficulties of thelow profile and limited distributionof poetry. It will also directly assistpoets by providing a guaranteedboost to the exposure of their work,and the printrun of their book. Inorder to achieve these aims, theBook Club brings you a quarterlyselection from the incredibly richand diverse field of contemporaryAustralian poetry. A respected orwell-known critic, reader or poetselects a title from among the manythat are published in Australiaeach quarter. The selected title isthen sent to the members of thePoetry Book Club of Australia, oftenbefore it appears in the bookshopsthat stock contemporary poetry. The price for annual membership is$60. You receive four selectionsover the year of your membership,in addition to a newsletter and theVaruna New Poetrybroadsheet.The Poetry Book Club isincorporated, which means onceyou join, you can have a say in howit is run. The Club is non-profit. Ifyou have any ideas on the way theClub could be developed, sendthem to the address below. Management committeeAndrew Wilkins PRES , David Kelly SEC , Coral Hull, Martin Langford,Ron Pretty and Adrian Wiggins. If you would like to join, send ayour details and a cheque for $60payable to the Poetry Book Club ofAustralia to POBox U34,Wollongong University, Wollongong2500. The P OETRY B OOK C LUB of A USTRALIA page 12corditeN¼ 1 Chapman RiverAt dusk, on a narrow path by the Chapman River, trying to locate myself,I peel the skin from a honey-locust thorn, and watch black ants move along a branch. The ants have made a dark stain on the bark from countless single-file journeyings. When I cut a line through them with the thorn, they back up, spreading into each other like grey water. Kneeling in mud beside the river, counting the three-forked prints of waterbirds, a sandfly with vertical stripes on its abdomen lands on my arm. I imagine a pair of herons high-stepping through a cloud of midges to investigate a soft splash near a willow snag. I see a sand fly bloating itself on my blood, and stab myself absent-mindedly with the thorn. Concentrating on the sting its poison makes, I watch the ants until itÕs too dark to see their feelers waving, place my ear above the bark, and listen to them collide, pause, move on. I locate myself. I give myself names: waterbird, black ant, footprint, peeled thorn. Postcards from the Bottom of the WNo water here where dust is thick and even patented. Her lepidopteristÕseyes quivering behind brambles of jewelrylike an aphrodisiac for the terminallynumb. She listens to the whimpersof broken-necked birds and thinksof Latin names pinned to specimen boards.A horripilation of moths drinkthe dried saliva from her lips;her face the pallor of the drowned.Too stingy even to buy a stamp. Herewe have an accurate depictionof weariness, the solid memory of cushions.You hang on those salted beachside walls,fading in all seasonsÕ weather, hoveringover the mute phone at the top of the stairs.Your crossed eyes the only thingretaining any colour, other than a bruisedsuggestion at your throat. The pursed lipslike the diagonal strike of a pawnwithin the circumference of your face.But it is the eyes which bind,always at the pinnacle, beyondthe reach of water, whom everybody hatedthat lived there, their red intensity lost.On my blind side, unnoticed, they have blendedchameleon-like into subsequent walls.At last the surface of wateris manifest, though it could be the sky.Unseen mosquito larvae freneticin the shade of a bridge. Puncturedmembranes of publicised dreamslitter the stillness and eventual peace.A floating spider poised on the lakeÕsmeniscus. Reflections of willowsconjure quiet violence, mud settlingwith stones, the ripples dissipatingafter a swamp-hen has shrieked acrossthe dinner plates of water lilliesclattering into the reeds. UNO G EMES Big Foot Spills His Guts Ð Mouth of Moony Creek, Autumn 1987J UNO G EMES Eric Mitchell, model maker, with model of his fatherÕs steamship Erringhi Ð Memorial Hall Brooklyn 1995 cordite N¼ 1page 13 Robert AdamsonThe Speaking Pfrom The Clean DarkWhen the tide moves againcomes up overinto Parsley Bay,goes overthe riverÕs torn entrails Ðyour breath becomesatmosphere,thoroughlythen youbegin to understandthat the riveris like a blank pageyou enter itdifferently: shapeit as you would a new thoughtwhen the rivercovers a bayyou know its weighthealing the savaged earthbegins to make musicas it covers oystersover the rocksits song fills the valley:a baroqueits lyricseasy to comprehenditÕs imaginationweavingthe river-song, your mindÕsinventionis playing youas the tide beginsand you see smooth mudand there is windsongto dance nowwith your voice. J UNO G EMES The Language of Oysters whereas the men always inevitably do, and oftenbombard you with work. This says a lot aboutÒconfidenceÓ, which is created by the patriarchy.tr I also think that still, and itÕs aterrible indictment to have to say thisbecause things haveimproved, but italso reflects the material conditionswomen live under. jk And an anthology, in a sense, ifitÕs not going to be didactic orpolemical, has to genuinely reflectwhat is happening in society. Salttries to do that, so I hope that myideal of 50% men and 50% womenwill happen before too long.tr And a necessary condition for thatto occur is that people feel thereÕsan openness, because of mostyoung feminists, and probably quite a few older oneswho are involved in writing, have been through the thingof looking through the anthologies and seeing onewoman poet and forty male poets, and have alwaysassumed that it has been programmatic, that thereÕs ÒaconspiracyÓ. When you get on theother side of it, and are trying torectify that, you realise that thereare other factors involved. You canhave the best of intentions and notnecessarily pull it off. But you haveto be open.jk The poets I find most interestingthese days, apart from those IÕveliked for a long time Ð there arecertain Australian male poets forexample whom IÕve been followingfor fifteen or twenty years and whomI hold in incredibly high esteem Ðbut of the new material IÕm seeingitÕs almost inevitably the womenpoets who impress me. This is because they areinventing a new kind of poetry. The old poetry is areflection of the patriarchy. For example, somethingvery exciting overseas is the work of the Americanpoet Lyn Hejinian, who has been writing since thesixties. SheÕs redefined whole territories and helpedgive many young American women Language poetsthe confidence to get their work out there. Thecomponent of the Language movement that isfemale is enormous, probably larger than the male! Ithink thatÕs really fascinating, because itÕs all aboutliberating language and breaking confines, makingnew language, which is something to be excitedabout.pm Stepping aside from issues of gender, youmentioned before, John, that you make editorialchoices in terms of what you consider to be Òa goodpoemÓ. How would you describe Òa good poemÓ?jk You have to look at a poem within its context. IfitÕs a lyrical poem, working with a set metre and soon, then if the metre is flawed itÕs obviously not agood poem. If itÕs flawed intentionally a good poemwill tell you so, because itÕs all about codes and ifyouÕre an experienced reader you know how to readcodes as opposed to mistakes. The poem mighthave a sense of irony playing against the metrics.But if a poet sets out to write a sestina, for example,which has a set pattern, and fails, then thatÕs veryobviously a poor traditional poem. On the other handif itÕs trying to be ironic and does it cleverly, that canbe a good parody or play against the form. In termsof theoretical poetry, I look for vitality primarily, forthings happening. ThereÕs a whole set of criteria thatone observes but primarily it comes from extensivereading and being familiar with the ways things canbe done with language. If you see somethingincredible you know it straight away, because itÕs notlike anything youÕve read before. It defines itself assomething new.tr I think whatÕs also crucial to the process, as IÕveobserved as an editor, is a sense of self-examination. This doesnÕt exist in a lot of editing,whereby people judge a Good Poem from a BadPoem without questioning what their preconceptionsof a Good Poem are. With Salt, I think what Johnalways tries to do is judge a poem within its owncontext, to say that a good poem is one which issucceeding on its own terms. This means you haveto constantly be asking yourself Òam I being narrowhere, is there something going on in this poem whichis outside my experience?Ó I think a lot of editors failto do this, and say a poem is rubbish because theydonÕt recognise what a poem might be trying to do onits own terms. And magazines get a name for doingthat sort of thing, for being anti-this or anti-that.jk The most common failing I come across is thatyou get people who write competent poems. Theyevoke images quite superbly and they give you a feelof something. LetÕs face it, the image is at the coreof the poem and if you can evoke a visual image orsense of sound then youÕre doing really well. Butthey donÕt seem to realise that theme is a verycomplex thing and that a poem must be more thanjust a statement about love or death. Otherwise wemight as well read engagement notices or obituaries.On the other hand, you want the particulars. JohnForbes, for example, can look at an incredibly complexpoem and know that itÕs about love, or is ostensibly anelegy or an ode of celebration. He can take the mostcomplex poem, start at the most basic principle behind itand then elaborate. I often find though, with lesssuccessful poets, you donÕt get a basic point. You mightget lots of elaborations but theyÕre not ultimately givenany drive. You could write a hundred page Languagepoem which deconstructs language to the nth degree,but if it doesnÕt give you a feeling of something inparticular then youÕre at a loss. You need a tone.pm I wonder also whether this consciousness of thelimits or boundaries in making editorial choices, of theselfÐreflexive way in which one reads a poem, alsoinforms each of your own writing processes. Is itimportant to be selfÐreflexively aware, when writing yourown poetry, of the boundaries of the language you haveused in the past, as well as of the conceptual andemotional boundaries of the self at the point of writing? Les Murray language...ÓÐJK continued on page 16 page 14corditeN¼ 1 Still Life Suite1. MagicianShe is marked as magician:sticks, flame, shadow and rope.She is restless, there is talk of prostitutionbehind the floured hands of the kitchensthe manicured administrations.There is the tilted town,lives operating in a perpetual potato winterfaces still sharp around the kitchen table,only now with a digital accuracy.The photocopier, the phone, the chairjust so.2. ButcherThe butcher is perfect in the window her hands blurred over solid machines.Linearity imposedbaroque with a marbled complexity.Everyday her immaculate aprona canvas of hunger.and expects more than this,as her TV glowswith a tubular processionexplosions, diamonds, and a meaningful glance.her hands moving in her lap.3. WormerHer hands are the only tool she has,they are full of the type of debrisembedded in the mangroves:broken bottle, jagged cans All around her there are plantsbreathing. On a quiet day As they cast bars of shadow acrossworming.Mangroves mock her in their successful living:Reproducing, transpiring, synthesizingwhile she is as dry and transparent asShe is seen on the shores,estuarine creatures moving about her.They are strung up in her hutShe is tolerated therefor one dayshe too shall become prey.4. GardenerThe flowers, the plantsare there as expected she remembersin cross sectionunder the microscope all those years Their constructionan orchestra of desirecornets of moist petalsgreat swabs of pollen.With her pencils and calipers,how could she have knownthat the house would come,a deceptively simple familyliving on inside. cordite N¼ 1page 15 Maryline Desbiollesfrom Pomes Saisonnierstranslated by Tracy Ryanfrostdeath brooding over eggsit isnÕt sadfrost leads on to colourprecisely the yolk of an eggwhose shell-crack frost also possessesyellow preciselybecause divided and infertileyou think of the frozen lustre of a young girl forever prepubescentby what stretch of the imagination has frost anything in common with the hen(but that it gives me gooseflesh) if not the fact that it makes the ground cackleand the grass cluck frozen cacklestopped in the throat but given the field no less a touch of the domesticmaking a farmyard of the forestfrost gives the earth a taste of water butthe way you rub an icecube on the lips of the sickboxtree the scentof boxtree felt as brief andinsistent (like the o and ee of its name)right in the cheek the mouth even the palatethe memory of boxtree has no smellthe scent of boxtree the potent and flexible scent of boxtreea poem exasperated at conveying nothingboxtree boxtree boxtree that givesit seems youÕve barely had time to sneeze orto ruffle your hair toclose your eyes one twothe plum treeÕs in bloomsour aroma of plum in bloomunder the tree as if under a fragilestrewing its white innocence unstinting on the four windsplum tree in bloom burninglike a certain bushas if no-one had ever seen a tree floweringardent and lightweightas the dress of a woman in loveyet isnÕt it also that unimaginable lightnessthat for no reason at all would strip the plum treeof its dress leaving it nothing but an anxious innocencestrain all this noisiness of things you havenÕt the timeto call by their names no time to recogniseall these tiny things too numerous for you to stitch a poem for eachin the car quick just a word to stave off thirst a word forthe trees spilling their blossom over walls gesturing slumped to the larksinging itself silly to escape from the field of rapeseed and alwayssinking back into that mute gold a wd for the light beneath grey sky andin its turn darknessa written pagethus lines of course furrows but mostly the identical feel-ing (IÕd like to use another word)at the bottom of the written page page 16corditeN¼ 1 tr Yes, that is very much the case for me personally. Ifind it extremely frustrating, but I do think itÕs a goodsign, because if you had a comfortable feeling of nolimits, or of not being constantly challenged by seeingsomething in poems which may be totally outside theway in which you write, and wanting to learn from that, Ithink you would be very static as a writer. One of thethings I find very beneficial about being with John is thathe writes a totally different kind of poetry and reads verydifferent things, and IÕve discovered things I wouldnÕthave otherwise. YouÕre always aware youÕre only doingone kind of thing, but just pushing a little against thatand trying to do something else is important.jk My general attitude to life is that everything, nomatter how seemingly uninteresting, is interesting. IÕllread anything. Sitting on my desk at the moment is 120Days of Sodomby de Sade, DescartesÕ Discourses, HQmagazine and thereÕs a Beckett novel and thereÕs MobyDick. A complete array of books. One of my otherobsessions at the moment is Deleuze and Guattari. Thepoint IÕm making ultimately is that I read everything andanything. And I try to do lots of things. In one day IÕll gobushwalking, listen to a classical concert and then apunk band...tr And that pushes the boundaries...jk ...yes, pushes the boundaries and shows thateverything is possible. In one day I might write a lyric anda very experimental visual piece, and as long as youkeep an open mind and allow things to actually flow intoyou rather than going around and just appropriatingthings, so that things actually appropriate you a bit aswell, it makes for a more interesting process.pm You are both about to enjoy a long stay atCambridge in the UK. How did this come about and whatdo you plan on doing there?jk IÕve had connections with Cambridge for a few yearsnow, through friends who teach in various colleges there,and IÕve had quite a bit to do with the Cambridge poets,who are the theoretical avant-garde of English poetryaccording to the London-school/Cambridge-schooldynamic. Some call them the Cambridge Leisure Centre,and theyÕre basically a group of aesthetes who ÔgettogetherÕ and explore the boundaries, or lack of, oflanguage, and their orientation is experimental but alsoextremely based within the tradition of the Englishcanon, which they play against constantly. ItÕs veryinformed poetry, kind of the English Language poetry,although theyÕd despise that terminology. Many of themconsider Jeremy Prynne and Veronica Forrest-Thomsonas the great poets of the postmodern era. Philip LarkindoesnÕt get mentioned in Cambridge, although they alladmit he can write a good line. TheyÕre a very interestingand highly aesthetic bunch, and IÕve beencommunicating with them and publishing them in Saltforquite a few years. Last year I was invited to theCambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry, CCCP(very appropriate considering the history of Cambridge!)which was an incredible collection of avant-garde poetsfrom America, Canada, France and the first fromAustralia. IÕve now got a New and Selectedpoems beingpublished by Arc in the UK (The Undertow1996), andanother book from Equipage, through Jesus CollegeCambridge, called The Radnoti Poems (1996), a veryexperimental book to be published during theconference. IÕll also be on a panel about magazineediting with a group of avant-garde editors. A veryinteresting thing about this conference is that their guestthis year is Les Murray, who in Australia is seen as veryconservative, and politically he is of course, butlanguage-wise he is incredibly interesting and underratedas an experimentalist in language. The Cambridge poetsare fascinated by his language and have invited him overto read. TheyÕre welcoming him as an experimentalist, sothat will be very interesting. While politically things maybe different this is another example of the ÒneutralÓworld of poetry! WeÕll also be spending some time atCambridge on a residency.tr WeÕre also going to spend some time briefly in Berlin.JohnÕs been collaborating with a Swiss sociologist/artist/writer Urs Jaeggi. WeÕll also be spending twoweeks in Paris at the Franco-Australian CulturalAssociation, and both of us are undergoing the processof having some of our poems translated into French.nInterview: Ryan & Kinsella (cont) Lauren WilliamsAnd OutItÕs like developing a photographin reverseFirst the detail is sharpthen the chemicals begintheir deconstructionSoon all thatÕs left of a personare bits and pieces Ðthe blue of an iris,the fierce dot of a pupil,crooked, real teethin a hard, soft mouth,the way the neck meets the shoulders,a ring on an elegant hand...The effort of holding these piecestogether becomes ludicrousTime eats the image blanktill thereÕs just a sheet of paperand even that will go. The HarleysBlats booted to blatantdubbin the avenue direwith rubbings of Sveinn Forkbeardleading a black squall of Harleyswith Moe Snow-Whitebeard andPossum Brushbeard and their ladiesmassed leather muscle on a run,on a roll, Santas from Helllike a whole shoal leaningwide-wristed, their tautness stablein fluency, fast streetscape dwindling,all rifing astride, on the outsideof sleek grunt vehicles, woman-clung,forty years on from Marlon. Varuna New Poetrythe best new andestablishedAustralian poets Anthony Lawrence Ð Meg Dunn Ð Dorothy Porter Ð Deb Westbury Available from the Varuna WritersÕ Centre Katoomba, 141 Cascade St, Katoomba NSW 2780. T 047 825 674 F 047 826 220 D IANE F AHEY Diane FaheyÕs poetry in this collection is remarkablyassured, a surety that comes of a hard-won self-awareness. While Fahey writes about her life with anunstinting honesty, she is never self pitying orwith the sexual interference of a child at various ages,and the subsequent inability in adulthood to recall theand psychological force as it concludes with the Þve-the sunlight, / with an immense dignity, / knowing IFahey manages her subject matter with such skill andintensity. Indeed, it is this pragmatic approach todifÞcult material that makes her work so compelling.The poems which deal with her fatherÕs illness anddeath (ÔIn MemoryÕ) contain moments of exquisiteThe message from FaheyÕs poetry is that suffering,difÞculty, pain and loneliness are instructive. InÔEighteenÕ she watches a wedding under trees shewalked amongst decades ago Òwith a sword stuckThe clever anagram of swords andstrikes with a great deal of intimateprecision into the heart of manyexperiences. The poems from thesection ÔIn Love and HateÕ are acerbicÒincompatible life-damageÓ (ÔSleepÕ).FaheyÕs focus is sharp and penetrating,her language so adroitly chosen, sodeftly executed and constructed as toand resonant. Her poem ÔIn the Half-lightÕ seems tobegin from hard-won wisdom. A simple unassumingsurface can reveal a rich depth, as in ÔTimeÕs Light,Though the focus of The Body in Timeis primarilyautobiographical, there is also an impressive sectionvoice here is engaged, yet not entangled. Fahey has apsychological implications. In ÔVisitationÕ, the sightingeach other, trying to break through / transparency,has an impressive, uncompromising integrity. It is so E R A N E W S O M Emily Bronte Re-Collects and OtherWith this latest volume Newsomcontinues with her hallmark themes:by a spare lyrical elegance and defttonal and formal control. Like Fahey,ÔCardiac ArrestÕ encapsulates many ofthe bookÕs concerns: ÒPain tells methat I am alive / And were I deaf orblind, surely some other sense wouldNewsom has a startling ability tohandle intensely personal moments ofthe PartyÕ she sets up subtle changesamongst the elements of the poem; reviews Judith Beveridge Evange liaA PapadopoulosJimmy Dean Jimmy DeanIt is hard and true my father smokes/drinks/works so hard and weÕve seen his kidneys in the rich light of his bloody body seen his skin peeledand pinned have said goodbye once have passed him the pills that keephim together keeps him with us sweet white liquid mixed in milk I usedto splice his pornos so theyÕd get stuck in the video come home later thanme as confused about what is good what is high conduct appropriatefeminine masculine man father husband keeping the whore the virginseparate I am Athena head-born to you donÕt die dad donÕt die youÕve not seen what I can do this is the last minute the last choice chooses to burn drown come Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean he laughs at things still gets giddy and awed I am a different joy sobercontentment home family sits beside his wife watching sit com sit comoddity sit still straight where I can see you old man old old bald sickterminal man your grave is dug sit so we can measure and commiseratewouldnÕt hurt you to exercise If my dad could talk really really talk aswell as he taught his girl heÕd say fuck that fuck you the heart will beat till he unplugs it with his own trembling hand trembles with cold fear thin thin blood and laughter. Wrapping the HayThe hay has just been stackedin neat yellow bricks like some complexpuzzle that needs to be solved.The shedÕs full, it sits alone out therein the stark yellow paddock Ð pathetic edificewaiting to be torched or blown away.But itÕs got Escher written all over itso thereÕs a sense of the infinite.Though early summer stormscan be pretty savage around here.Lightning-struck trees along the roadsidesare testament to this. Dad reckonsweÕd better get straight to it. Coveringthe stack with blue plastic sheetingand staking it deep in the ground.But schoolÕs just finished and nextyear itÕll be university in the city.Art history. But none of this landscapestuff Ð give me Jeff Koons fuckingCicciolina, those fleshy cybernautsin sight. So itÕs hard to get motivatedfor a clip under the ear. I wonderif heÕs joking but get out there with my brothers and get stuck into it.Far fromThe Madding Crowdand work up a sweatthinking about Cicciolina. And how stylishit would be to have a film versionwith Koons instead of Alan Bates.But keeping Julie Christie asBathsheba Everdene. Gross!The blue plastic flaps viciously as the wind lifts. It cracks in our faces.It catches my youngest brotherspray-paints the hay. He keepsat it, swearing at the top of his voice.and for a dreadfull momentwe seem to be furiously adriftin the vast ocean of the paddock.Over the Hills where the stormÕs dark eyedilates. The rain drives hardand I forget about everything. Finallythe hay is wrapped. Christo appearsin my head and I keep him there. page 18corditeN¼ 1 MTC Cronin He said ÒTook a fair whackingÓAnd she saw blood on his chinAnd on the butt of the gun, with hair, she sawBits of hare on his chest andThey drove andThey drove without talkingPast the ChinamanÕs farmPast Colonel BathÕs house where sheÕd gone oneDay for work experience, but she canÕt to thisDay remember what sheÕd done there becauseThe boys had teased and teased herThe whole week before sheÕd had to goColonel Bath, they said, will give you ordersColonel Bath will order you to give him a bath, she hasNo idea, she says, shaking her head, and I haveNo idea, really, what the Cuan is evenWhen I see a sign that says ÒCuanÓWhen my mother sees it she pointsÒPopÕs father was born on the Cuan andPopÕs fatherÕs father, when he was sickWith cancer, went back to the bush and shot himselfÓ(With the quick thinking of ninety-two years . . . )My baby who has laughed herself to sleepIn the motel room, in the pubIn the church and in the Chinese RestaurantAnd on this weekend away for a memorial service for her motherAnd father, my mother talks to the old people andAt the church wears a beautiful blue-green dressAnd on this weekend away my mother criesAnd pays for everythingMy grandfatherÕs father was born on the CuanMy mother tells me as we driveOn the road from Merriwa to SconeOn the road thirty-five years agoShe rode to see my fatherShe rode a motorcycle then, an NSUDown the dry creek beds and into his angerDown the road from Scone to MerriwaI imagine her at sixteen in the bushI see from the car window Following behind her older brother and his gunFollowing the idea of rabbits behind every treeAnd by eighteen she still had never shot oneAnd by five in the evening neither of them hadSo Brian said ÒYouÕll have to hit one with the carSo weÕve got something to take home for TinnyFor goodness sake she thought as she steeredInto the small streaking form, blinkingInto the late afternoon light burying itselfIn many placesIn the trees, the paddocks, the soft rangeThe animal thudded but wasnÕt dead, shot intoThe paddock with the boy in hot pursuitWhile her hands sweated on the wheel she heardScreaming filling its purple noise into the countrysideScreaming? No it stretched higher than thatIt was her sitting in time made remarkable, she realisedIt was the hare squealingSomewhere she couldnÕt seeSomewhereAn insane, imitating and forceless soundAn old sound, but bright and clear refusingTo turnTo live . . . or die each other to dramatic effect. This poem achieves itsThe pinnacle of this collection, however, is the longtitle poem ÔEmily Bronte Re-CollectsÕ, a sequence ofand into creativity, loss and obsession. Here, one canonly admire the use of drama, contemplation andcharacterisation over a long distance, and though thepoem primarily reßects NewsomÕs own concerns, thehas been used simply to serve the poetÕs own ends.Newsom has brought her imaginative and empatheticthe eighth poem ÔBaking BreadÕ, Newsom has Bronteask Òis one life on earth enough?Ó which recollectsNewsomÕs own thoughts in ÔCardiac ArrestÕ as sheAs is evidenced by her previousvolumes, Newsom works in acareful, linear way. Hers is apoetry of restraint and control.She rarely breaks out of a simplesyntactical structure, but thisenables her to be very clear anddirect and to pay meticulousattention to rhythm and music.Perhaps a drawback of this linearsuffers from over-simpliÞcation,or becomes too rationallysimiles sound an astonishingtowards the commonplace, as inA poem such as ÔEnduranceÕ,however, does show Newsom striking out for newground in the way her associations develop a moreambidextrous logic as she moves from thoughts aboutof wits, and skill; and joy in running / through thethe poem achieves emotional and imaginative release.By implication the game of cricket symbolises theas a passionate and graceful purveyor of the tensionsorchestrated, carefully selected. She brings clarity andwith an intensity and sincerity that surely mark her RACY R YAN Bluebeard in Drag has a more concentrated focus thanThe pace isnÕt headlong but inexorable. Ryan invokesand the emotional complexity of her work isreminiscent of Plath. Even morestrongly it recalls the poetry ofAmerican writer Sharon Olds, notbecause of a similarity of style, but ofRyan explores structures within thefamily: power and asthenia, authorityand submission, inheritance anddispossession. She concentrates inparticular on the child. This is similarRyanÕs poems are lean, with shorturgent lines like telegrams from theIÕll elaborate brießy on the contrastbetween these two writers. In herof a child being pried open, laid bare.God is a squirrel Òreaching downthrough the / hole she broke in myshell,...with His / arm in the yolk ofCell, Knopf 1994). Olds tears open experience in a Karen Attard reviews Peter BoyleVlado Per playing RavelThe elegant sadness of this mis just the first layBeneath enter againthe cory of a remote childhood,the bindings between the shoulder the neck the puffed belly.Find the white lonely fingerspoised above a lake in midwinterand all that dies in small rthe earth realigning itself,small beginnings of or. eathe in the mathematician's crthe carefully measured sticks that prop upious buildings wherethe hearts of reptiles are frStand for the smallest part of a secondin the doorway where the rains fragrance from the herb gare the longing for another world ips you bare.While the after-tremor of this mripples, eddying around yonly sit firmly as you playand glance with the lightest nod of rat all the wedding photogthe funeral notices.Sitting upright concentrateon the earth's movthe inle passage of light into darkso that the exact measure of elegance be transmitted -just enough for this momentto outdistance pain.Let the pause between notesbe brief yet long enoughto break however lightlythe gvity of falling through soundless space. poetry readings, workshops, open days and celebrity events.available to 25 writers from all over Australia each yearproject but who have not yet received significant publication.Who Want To Write and Sue Woolfe Ð Dangerously30th November each year. For membership and fellowshipVaruna 141 Cascade StT 047 825 674 Katoomba NSW 2780. F 047 826 220 RyanÕs poem ÔLeechesÕ canÕt bear to look at thecreature her brother turns inside out, although shered satinÓ. This is unusual in RyanÕs poetry. Evenwhen the bodyÕs wholeness is broached, as it is inÔCystÕ Ð Òthey pulled ten litres from like / tapping asealed / like baby lips to nipple / unshiftableÓ Ð thefather/creator who stitches hisfemale creature together likeFrankensteinÕs monster. RyanSilence and testimony areembodied. Ryan quotes AliceMiller: ÒThe victimisation ofWhat is forbidden is to writeabout itÓ. This is central toThe daughter in ÔMonsterÕ pursues her Frankensteinspaces of the page.Ó A reviewer of RyanÕs Þrstof whiteÓ surrounding the poems, but this fails torecognise the importance of that mute space. ItÕs aÒhand over / mouth,Ó of a whole winter she canÕtrememberÓ, of Òtruths gone undergroundÓ. A silenceas eloquent, in way, as OldsÕ series of stunning ENIE H OLMGREN Peasant in January dialoguepress 104pp; A NNE E DGEWORTH Peasant in January consists mainly of performancepieces and conversational meditations on the ruralquote which prefaces it: ÒTo put it in a nutshell,literature, either spoken or written, is humanitythinking aloud Ð communicating its experience of allthat is, holding a great continuous discussion throughLike Holmgren, Anne EdgeworthÕs poetry has ameditative tone and she too is interested nperformance. The Þrst and last sections ofThe Road to Leongatha are both entitledÔEnds and BeginningsÕ but endings seem topredominate in this collection. It has anHope and McCaulay Ð an overall air of RAEME W EBSTER In Skinning TimeGraeme Webster haswritten poems suffused with violence,showing articulately how blood flows, howthe persona is repeatedly "skinned by...loss"paused, / then fed the blade across the throat, boreIn others, such as ÔDown Bulmer LaneÕ violence iscarefully disengaged voices, makes this collectionunrelenting, and at the same time restrained fromexcess. The strength of these poems is in their RANT C ALDWELL You know what I mean is rhythmically flat andunemotive. Caldwell's intention is apparently to keepwhat I was looking at. / Ants, she said. / I waswatching a line of ants / carrying things back andchanging shift, drunks in parks, garbage collectors inthe ambulance drove away / we sat around / on thebluff / saying nothing / watching the sea". (ÔTidalRiverÕ) The closing poem, ÔI am the centre of myuniverseÕ, concentrates the theme. Moving "back and"I am", the significance of the individual is equallydissipated and concentrated "in this small universe ofPrecise language and unerring rhythm maintain thebland tone of empty living. This is accentuated inmovement Ð walking, riding buses or trams Ð whichcarried me off / to wherever it was / I was going."These are poems of statement, rather than emotionalunderstatement. There are few images, usuallyunrelated tohuman life:"birds fly likesparks across thesky" (ÔRentedhouse trilogyÕ)and trees aresymphonies oflimbs andbranches" (ÔOldtrees, old housesand kookaburraFrom thepassenger pointof view,Caldwell issuccessful in showing life as repetitive and pointless.and take the readerÕs imagination closer to the poet's U S A N B O W E R Factory Joker Five Islands Press ARK OÕF LYNN Two new publications from the most recent NewPoetsÕ series confirm the growing reputation of FiveIslands Press, and excite as collections whichJoker is indeed a performance by a highly skilled andenergetic poet. BowerÕs use of language is technicallyassured and characterised by concentrated irony. Sheexcells at warping the vernacular into hyperrealnature. The poetry is always honest, and BowerBower is also politically engaging. Her poemscaustically attack complacencies in poetic content andlanguage, revealing undercurrents of violence andBowerÕs first bookSydney poet. MarkOÕFlynnÕs The toobright sun a more reflective,vaudivillean manner:ÒShe rolled her firstsnail/around hergums...Ó (ÔHer FirstSnailÕ). Engaging onboth humurous andsignificantly seriousOne of the best poems in the book, ÔFoxÕ, Tom ClarkAz ii wondurdand ii - dhen despuretmust huv werkt its wundurzÐ loenliy, long, loston kongkreet korudauz Ðwaumd tou meein dhiy upresiv sumur heetuv udvencurz on dhe hii weekend:ÔWer you dhaer?Wen it hapend, wer you dhaer?Õyaer.ÕGood frendz, dhoepuhaps wun oevulooks etÐ paur luvurz kworulon dhe blisturing streets,lumenting butraiyulbencez and shaid dhat giv usdhe kwiiyet beerz uv soludaretiy. Kathielyn Job Peter Minter reviews cordite wants your poetry news! Shortsubmissions from all states on readings,publications, festivals and happenings arewelcome. Future issues will also include acalendar of national poetry events, publicationsWest Australiaundergoing a rennaissance, focused by the activities ofboth new (see John Mateer, p.2 & review p.22 ) andaward-winning poets in high-quality volumes, and byThe DISK readings, originally established by Philipthe written word by contemporary writers of poetry,fiction, performance and other texts. ÒNorthbridge. Every reading is scheduled for the thirdInvited readers are likely to include published writers,students, new ÒfindsÓ and overseas writers. readings run on the 2nd Monday of each month, atAberdeen Hotel in Northbridge and actively promotewomenÕs writing in Perth. Ashley Higgs can beAllan Boydis coordinator of the readings and editor/publisher of in February 1996. Òfeatures fresh, abruptthrough the doors.Ó Following the success of thereadings, Allan Boyd has published an anthology ofenthusiastic, work by poets who are worth watching:Zan Ross, Evangelia Papadopoulos, Kathryn Tenger,Kevin Gillam and Sophia Dale. expected early this year, and can be accessed via, or from AllanNutz & Boltzis AdelaideÕs open mike ÒanarchisticÓperformance poetry evening held at Boltz Cafe inAdelaide. Since its initiation over three years ago thefounders have proceeded, in their own words, Òwithabandon and without caution upon a series of(serious poets) and other spoken-wordsmiths will belast Wednesday of each month. There are no guestContact Glenn Murdoch at the South AustralianNew South WalesThe poetry scene, particularly in inner Sydney, hasover the past couple of years experienced its longawaited revival. Focused by the enthusiasm of a newwave of poetry activists, editors and writers in a widerange of genres, the number of poetry readings andto grow. Some of the better readings and eventsMcGregor (02 9387 4029) and held at the TapGallery in Darlinghurst every 2nd Tuesday night,this event has established a vibrant, eclectic andwelcoming scene of its own. See and hearperformers such as Peter Hines, Tug Dunbleycontinues to draw large crowds to readings on the¥ Dipped in Inkfocuses the activities of poets insupport of the younger poets in western Sydney,Dipped in Inkhas been held regularly andUnion and held at eminent bookstores such asOutside the Sydney metropolitan region, readings and¥ the Varuna WritersÕ Centre, which publishes thecosy, sometimes large, always enthusiastic andrunning Newcastle Poets in the Pub continues todraw large crowds to experience the work of local¥ the Far South Coast Regional Poets, who arepreparing to host the 1997 Regional Poetsin Bega. Venie Holmgrenreports thatJohn Foulcher, Martin Harrison and Kathielyn Jobwill be running workshops and readings. Cold cordite N¼ 1page 21 news The Poets Union Inc is anand lovers of poetry.The Union is a membership-based national poetry society.Only two and a half years agomembership was about 150 andcentred mainly around Sydney.Today the Union has more than300 members in New SouthWales and another 100 or so into be expansive and outreachingand we intend to grow evenstronger. As the Union grows itwill provide an increasinglynational service to an increasinglynational membership. Union Acti The Poets Union has organisedthe highly successful twin Poetson Wheels tours to the northernand southern regional areas ofNew South Wales in 1996. TheUnion is also involved in thefollowing:Gleebooks and The Gallery Cafe¥ Monthly poetry workshops atthe State Library¥ Work with Varuna Writers'Centre at Katoomba to stage theBlue Mountains Poetry Festival¥The Sydney WritersÕ Festival andthe NSW Writers' Centre'sannual Spring Writing FestivalWe even do T-shirts!The Union produces a monthlymagazine, IVE B ELLS articles and reviews and news andviews about the Oz poetry scene.Meg Dunn says: Ò IVE B ELLS lifeline to regional or isolatedpoets, keeping people in touchdevelopments in AustralianpoetryÓ. J So who are these members andwho can join? Members haveone thing in common Ð they lovepoetry. Anyone can join.Established poets are welcome;those who've never beenpublished are welcome. All youhave to do to be a member isread, write or simply enjoypoetry. Membership is $30 for full fee,institutional membership.Address: The Poets page 22corditeN¼ 1 observation, particularly when articulating thegenerational tensions and attentions between father andconfident (ÔThe Camber of the RoadÕ), confirming ARCELLA P OLAIN the growing attention payed Australia-wide to poetsworking in Perth and Fremantle. Marcella PollainÕscollection positions her as a competent poet concernedterms of emotional and familial spaces. Her best poemsengage with the personal and interpersonal such thatThe seriousness of PolainÕs explorations of personality,happy / belly fully loaded accomplice crying in thepram.Ó PolainÕs weaker work fails however to extendbeyond the particular or commonplace, wants to speakdeeply for the universal or the collective but relies OHN M ATEER John MateerÕs second book will surely establish hisreputation as one of the stronger talents among theyounger Australian poets. is a powerful,uncompromising collection. Mateer demonstratesthe most influential trends in contemporary Australianpoetry. Postmodernism, romanticism, surrealism,book, ÔThis (phenomenal) JourneyÕ, has MateerForbes, Adamson and Kinsella into a strange butbeyond the prosaic. Mateer is a young poet, and hisshort lyrics such as ÔA ReplyÕ or ÔHer White DressÕ tosuch as ÔThe Brewery SiteÕ. The really satisfying thing reviews R O B E R T A D A M S O N has successfully combinedcareers as poet, editor and publisher over thepast 25 years. He is currently a director andof . He has published nine volumes ofpoetry and won numerous national awards and A R E N A T T A R D Õ S first book, whisper dark, U D I T H B E V E R I D G E is a Sydney poet whose firstcollection, The Domesticity of Giraffes,won theMary Gilmore Award and both the NSW andVictorian PremiersÕ Prizes in 1988. Her second U S A N B O W E R is a Sydney poet. Her first book,in the 1995 New Poets Series. She is currentlyenrolled in a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the ETER B OYLE Prize for his first collection, Coming Home fromediting an anthology of Australian poets to betranslated into Spanish and published in JOANNEBURNS book, penelopeÕs knees, was published by OM C LARK Sydney. He has previously been published in E N N I F E R C O M P T O N is a poet and playwright. Her RONIN is a writer living in Sydney. Her firstcollection zeotropewas published by Five IslandsPress in the 1995 New Poets Series.M A R Y L I N E D E S B I O L L E S is author of over ten books,novels. She was born in 1959 and is presentlyliving in south France. Tracy RyanÕs translationsare of poems appearing in (Telo Martins 1992, U N O G E M E S is an artist with an outstandingnational and international career as aphotographer. She has worked extensively withAboriginal communities, and in 1994 wasTorres Strait Islander Studies Fellowship todocument her comprehensive photographicarchive ÔIn Our Time Ð Photographs and Texts HILIP H AMMIAL a poet, editor and publisher, having publishedeleven volumes of poetry, most recently ATHIELYN J OB in the Central West of NSW, in Sydney and inPennsylvania. In addition to writing poetry she O H N K I N S E L L A is an award winning WestAustralian poet, currently writer-in-residence atCambridge University, UK. His most recent bookLightning Tree was published by Fremantle ArtsCentre Press, and The Undertow, New and NTHONY L AWRENCE poetry, most recently The Viewfinder of the inaugural 1996 Gwen Harwood Poetry O H N M A T E E R is a West Australian poet. His firstbook, Burning Swans, was published in 1995released in January 1997 by Fremantle Arts E T E R M I N T E R a Sydney poet, editor and writer,edits cordite and the Varuna New Poetryin a Dorsal Fin, was published by Five IslandsPress in the 1995 New Poets Series andshortlisted for the 1996 NSW PremierÕs Poetry ES M URRAY and editors. He has published numerouscollections of poetry during a career spanning A R K O Õ F L Y N N is a poet, playwrite and reviewer. V A N G E L I A A R T E M I S P A P A D A P O U L O S is a WestAustralain poet studying toward her honoursdegree in psychology and writing at Curtin ARK R EID is a poet and editor living in Fremantle.His first collection, Bitter Suite, was published byFive Islands Press in the 1995 New Poets Series.P H I L I P S A L O M has published several volumes ofpoetry, a novel, two chapbooks and a play. Hehas won numerous national and internationalawards, twice winning the CommonwealthPoetry Prize and three times the WesternAustralian PremierÕs Prize for Poetry. He wasrecently awarded the 1996 Newcastle Poetry U G H T O L H U R S T is a Melbourne poet. Filth and I R S T E N T R A N T E R is a poet and editor living inSydney. She has previously published work in, Avernus and the Varuna New Poetry DRIAN W IGGINS BeggarÕs Codex was published by Five Islands A U R E N W I L L I A M S lives in Melbourne and isstudying toward her Bachelor of Arts in SpanishCopywrite of each work published in remains with its author. Except for the cordite N¼ 1page 23 Tom Clark, MTCCronin, Simone Demorgan, ArabellaContributions of long articles, essays or interviewsshould be discussed with the editors beforenecessarily reßect the opinions of the editors unlessotherwise stated, and on the understanding that they cordite subs 4 Issues - $20 (postage included)Tel.Fax. FriendÕs Name.Tel.Fax.8/39 Fitzroy St, Kirribilli NSW 2061or Fax to 02 9964 9814committed to the publication of the best poetry, written in any genre, and the bestideas, commentaries and discussion of what it means to write, read or think aboutpoetry. Ginsberg once said Òall decades flower toward the endÓ.reads poetry anyway?Ó works to obscure the fact that good poetry needs only to besubstance; when skill, intelligence and craft are ignored by publishers wanting toa publicly-funded supplement such as The AustralianÕs Review of Books, which haspretensions of being a quality literary review publishes only one poem per issue Ð this is the time to back-burn, to spark up and clear out the undergrowth. By publishing in tabloid format, Cordite has been able to, the tabloid format allows room for longer, moreWhile not quite invoking BarthesÕ Òhedonistic aestheticÓ, Cordite hopes that withoutaims to provoke discussion, to promote debate, to give poets and readers of poetryspace to again persuade one another that poetry is, essentially, a common sense. editorialcordite N¼1 by Koreen Whykes