Wednesday, December 20, 2006

In my thirtieth year to the sky ...








Way back in the 1970s, Brian Dibble, an American who had only recently come to roost in Perth, Western Australia, guest edited an issue of Beloit Poetry Journal (USA) and produced a Western Australian Chapbook. The cover was by Guy Grey-Smith, well-known local artist and the poetry was various and very us. Of particular interest are the contributions by William Hart-Smith, one of my favourite Australian/New Zealand poets of that era. He was originally a Jindyworabak poet - one of a group who insisted on using images and the flora and fauna of our large island continent to make a truly Australian poetry. Much of the poetry produced by others became jingoistic and parochial, but some poets rang true in this theme, among them Roland Robinson and William Hart-Smith. I say all this from memory, being thousands of kilometres from my home library. Either way, it is a very interesting issue of a magazine which still flourishes today.

Other poets include Lee Knowles, Hal Colebatch, Glen Phillips, Phil Collier and myself (heavily under the influence of the Projectivists).

Take a look at http://www.bpj.org/index/V25N3.html

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