The Miraculous Vineyard of Australian Poetry

Poetry and glamour don't usually mix, but Australian poetry is starting to look like a special case. True, there is not yet much of a chance that Les Murray and Peter Porter will be asked to pose for photo spreads like Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman. But in the rest of the English-speaking world there is now a general agreement among the literary tipsters that poetry is something the Aussies do with an extra zing: the way they do food, wine, bush hats, elastic-sided boots and media tycoons. The general agreement, admittedly, is still a bit simple minded, but it is steadily moving up-scale. If it ever catches up with the abundant reality, however, the word "miracle" will have to come into play, and for once it will almost fit. Australian poetry is a thing for awe, for dropping to the knees and giving thanks. Pinch me if you see what I see. Whence came this abundance?

Before we trace the abundance to its historical origins, we should be aware of its true scope, which is even more extensive than we might think. Take a look at Best Australian Poems 2003, edited by Peter Craven. It's the first volume of a new series that from now on will come out annually. There are forty poets represented in it, nearly all of them with something substantial. ("Substantial" meaning that you can't ignore it, even when you don't like it.) If you already know something about the Australian literary world, you will recognize the names of David Malouf, Les Murray, John Tranter, Fay Zwicky, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Peter Porter, Bruce Dawe, Alan Wearne, Peter Rose, Thomas Shapcott, Geoffrey Lehmann, Geoff Page, Dorothy Porter, John Kinsella, Bruce Beaver and probably several others. But then there are names that are only now making their first impact; and then, a long way back, trailing along with his fractured Globite portmanteau spilling manuscripts, there is Clive James, who is very glad to be included. For a long time I have worked off-shore, but now I have been brought home, and am mighty proud to be included in this number, because the number is select, even though it is dauntingly large. Mere quantity, of course, is no proof of fertility. We must not forget the Soviet cultural commissar who boasted that his district had 167 registered writers, all members of the Writers' Union. "A hundred years ago, there was only one." The one he meant was Tolstoy.

But the poets in Craven's anthology all have a claim to the title, and you could make another anthology from the poets he has left out. (They would probably like to make a rissole out of him. I imagine the boiling fat has already started to fly.) Rivalry, and indeed outright bitchery, has always been inseparable from the poetic scene, which, even as it booms like the Sydney Olympics, continues to work rather like world championship ice-dancing: agreement on technical merit is sometimes possible, but there is rarely much agreement about artistic impression. Also the judges, to go on with the metaphor, tend to do a bit of skating themselves. Most of our best poets have been among our best critics, and vice versa. Individualists who cling together only to get a fair share of the blankets, the poets are a family in which incest is functional, even when one of the results is casual murder. Poetry pays peanuts even when on a government subsidy, but the stakes are high: higher than ever, now that Australia no longer need look to overseas opinion for validation. For admiration, yes: but an extramural certificate we no longer need. Glory begins at home, and glory is the pay-off. (You've never really been flattered until you've been quoted.) Everyone would like a reputation. Speaking as the kind of poet who has usually had to do without one, I have to say that I am childishly pleased that a place has finally been found for me. My own sustaining belief has always been that poems matter more than poets; that no poet should write anything unless he feels an inner need; and that a life's-work should be the accumulated moments of necessary expression. In other words, it shouldn't be a career. My recently published book of collected poems, called The Book of My Enemy, has more than four hundred pages of work in it. They were written at a rate of fewer than ten pages a year, and there is not a line among them that I wrote to help keep up my reputation, because I didn't have one. I'm glad to say that the book has already run through five printings in Britain alone, and been treated with respect by the critics even when they obviously thought it strange that a transplanted Aussie talk-show host should be driven to verse, instead of driven to the studio in the back of a large car with Margarita Pracatan at the wheel.

(The rest of this article is in The Meaning of Recognition, published by Picador in 2005.)