Lovely Rhyme, But Little Reason

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday April 3, 1992

Reviewed by HEATHER CAM

WITHIN WEEKS of the launch of The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry, edited by John Tranter and Philip Mead, this hefty and handsome hardcover arrives.

Yet another anthology - which prompts me to ask: Does every sizeable publishing house need to have a national poetry anthology on its list? Do most major poets approaching a certain point in their career feel the irresistible urge to father an anthology? And finally, is it perhaps true that the anthology is the quintessentially Australian form - apparently egalitarian, an expression of mateship, and often enough, perhaps blindly, entrenched in prejudice?

Some will protest that "prejudice" should be more kindly described as"focus", "personal selection", or "critical choice". Of course, it is expected that anthologies will be idiosyncratic to an extent; and their nature is to be exclusive.

Gray and Lehmann state that they "have not tried to include poets on the basis of regional or any other prescriptive demands". This sounds innocent enough, until you come to realise that the so-called "Australia" of the anthology's title comes to be more or less synonymous with the eastern seaboard States.

They are at pains to "avoid that last vice of anthologists, especially of those from small literary communities: friendship".

A laudatory aim, although it is only human to appreciate and respond positively to the work of like-minded artists.

Gray's and Lehmann's aesthetic stand is clearly spelt out:

We expect poetry to appeal to the senses and to affect the emotions. Poetry is not primarily about ideas, although these can and should be assimilated by it ... Work that is basically intellectualising, if presented as poetry, has assumed a decorative, redundant form.

We do not believe literary innovation is necessarily more admirable than an individual, revitalised use of tradition.

Bringing aesthetic criteria to bear is the anthologist's prerogative, indeed his or her duty.

Nevertheless, there would seem to be grounds for complaint when an anthology completely ignores large tracts of its title's domain - in this case, 20th-century Australian poetry.

It noticeably under-represents or excludes outright generally acknowledged, significant and proven voices from: whole geographic regions (notably South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania); entire cultural pockets("multicultural" and Aboriginal Australia); an entire, vibrant, contemporary poetic movement (the performance poets); and the opposite sex.

Let's take the last group as an instance. Although, admittedly, women represent a smaller fraction of published poets in this country, less than a quarter of the 53 places available in Gray's and Lehmann's anthology go to women poets.

Injury is then added to insult by granting this under-represented group less than 15 per cent of the pages. (Tranter and Mead's Penguin anthology is slightly more generous to women: a third of its poets are female, although they occupy a cramped quarter of the overall space available.)

A staggering 85 per cent of the Heinemann anthology is devoted to the poetry of white, Anglo-Celtic males.

This is not to dispute that these poets are worthy of inclusion in a collection of this century's best Australian poetry.

I don't in the least begrudge the presence of Christopher Brennan, Kenneth Slessor, A. D. Hope, Peter Porter, Les Murray and their brothers. (Glaringly excluded from this fraternity are Robert Adamson and Bruce Beaver - although relatively minor, albeit peculiarly Australian, poetic talents, such as Barry Humphries and Clive James, are given cameo appearances.)

What does astound and anger is that yet another anthology manages to effectively silence so many other significant voices, and ignore such a rich diversity of other talents.

In conducting a tour that side-steps vast tracts of our poetry, the editors present a distorted and shrunken map of this country's 20th-century poetic landscape.

Having registered my dismay, I should say that, aside from those criticisms already levelled, I applaud Gray's and Lehmann's introductions to each poet.

In one of three pages, they sketch the outlines of the individual poet's biography. These include a range of fascinating and telling details which give the poet a human face and character.

We hear about the family background, education, employment, domestic arrangements, appearance, habits, poetic influence and allegiances, perceived poetic strengths and, where it is felt appropriate, weaknesses.

Always enlightening, instructive, entertaining and insightful, these mini-essays are the main strength and saving grace of Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century.