Article Title: Departures, Refurbishings, and Arrivals
Article Subtitle: New Zealand fiction in the 1980s
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The house of fiction in New Zealand, neither a large not crowded dwelling at the best of times, has emptied somewhat dismayingly over the past year or two with the deaths in rapid succession of four highly respected long-term tenants: Ngaio Marsh, John A. Lee, Frank Sargeson, and M.K. Joseph, the first three of whom have been in residence for almost fifty years.
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The house of fiction in New Zealand, neither a large not crowded dwelling at the best of times, has emptied somewhat dismayingly over the past year or two with the deaths in rapid succession of four highly respected long-term tenants: Ngaio Marsh, John A. Lee, Frank Sargeson, and M.K. Joseph, the first three of whom have been in residence for almost fifty years.
Article Title: The River is Deep and the River is Wide
Article Subtitle: New Zealand poetry in the 1980s
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The art of poetry is alive and well in New Zealand in the 1980s. In spite of the economic recession which has decimated literary journals and made the publication of poetry more than ever a dubious commercial proposition, in terms of both quality and quantity New Zealand poetry has probably never been stronger. There are a number of factors contributing to this situation. One is that, leaving aside isolated colonial precursors, poetry as a continuous history in New Zealand is a relatively recent affair going back only fifty or sixty years. Consequently, the stream has become broader and deeper with each passing decade, and yet the beginnings of the tradition are still (as it were) concurrent through the survival and continued activity of poets such as Allen Curnow, now in his seventies, who published his first book fifty years ago. There are in the 1980s poets active from every subsequent generation which has fed into the stream: poets from the 1940s (Louis Johnson, Kendrick Smithyman, Alistair Campbell), poets from the 1950s (Ruth Dallas, W.H. Oliver, C.K. Stead), poets from the 1960s (Vincent O’Sullivan, Hone Tuwhare. Michael Jackson), poets from the 1970s (Sam Hunt, Bill Manhire, Ian Wedde), and finally poets who have emerged within the last few years (Meg Campbell, Keri Hulme, Cilla McQueen), to mention only representative names.
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The art of poetry is alive and well in New Zealand in the 1980s. In spite of the economic recession which has decimated literary journals and made the publication of poetry more than ever a dubious commercial proposition, in terms of both quality and quantity New Zealand poetry has probably never been stronger. There are a number of factors contributing to this situation. One is that, leaving aside isolated colonial precursors, poetry as a continuous history in New Zealand is a relatively recent affair going back only fifty or sixty years. Consequently, the stream has become broader and deeper with each passing decade, and yet the beginnings of the tradition are still (as it were) concurrent through the survival and continued activity of poets such as Allen Curnow, now in his seventies, who published his first book fifty years ago. There are in the 1980s poets active from every subsequent generation which has fed into the stream: poets from the 1940s (Louis Johnson, Kendrick Smithyman, Alistair Campbell), poets from the 1950s (Ruth Dallas, W.H. Oliver, C.K. Stead), poets from the 1960s (Vincent O’Sullivan, Hone Tuwhare. Michael Jackson), poets from the 1970s (Sam Hunt, Bill Manhire, Ian Wedde), and finally poets who have emerged within the last few years (Meg Campbell, Keri Hulme, Cilla McQueen), to mention only representative names.
There have been important publications in each of the fields of literary criticism, memoirs and biography, and history in New Zealand during the last few years. In a brief survey it is hardly possible to cover the field entirely; what I can do is to indicate what I take to be the important titles in each of these areas.
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There have been important publications in each of the fields of literary criticism, memoirs and biography, and history in New Zealand during the last few years. In a brief survey it is hardly possible to cover the field entirely; what I can do is to indicate what I take to be the important titles in each of these areas.
The portrait likely to emerge in this article will be more that of a trend in Australian literature than of a writer named Frank Hardy.
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The portrait likely to emerge in this article will be more that of a trend in Australian literature than of a writer named Frank Hardy.
Most people know a good deal about Frank Hardy, the writer and the man, little or nothing is known about the social forces which created him or his part in the ideological struggle which has characterised Australian literature for one hundred years.
One hundred years? He’s not that bloody old, surely!
But I did know Mary Gilmore well and Henry Lawson’s widow, Bertha, and the first writer I tried to model myself upon was Lawson, especially his early writings about the great economic depression of 1888–93 (‘Faces in the Street’, ‘Arvie Aspinall’s Alarm clock’, etc.).
‘This internment of ours is but a sideshow of the war’, says a former Dunera internee in this book. Yet this footnote to Britain’s war on the home front has acquired considerable importance for Australia.
Book 1 Title: The Dunera Scandal
Book 1 Subtitle: Deported by mistake
Book Author: Cyril Pearl
Book 1 Biblio: Angus and Robertson, $14.95, 233 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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‘This internment of ours is but a sideshow of the war’, says a former Dunera internee in this book. Yet this footnote to Britain’s war on the home front has acquired considerable importance for Australia.
Approximately one thousand former Dunera internees became Australian citizens after the war, many of them highly gifted, even distinguished, post-war Australians. Historically, their wartime and post-war presence enabled many Australians, including some politicians, to understand for the first time the meaning of Hitler and Nazism, and the nature of the ‘Jewish refugee’.
The story should by now be familiar. Panic and spy-phobia, not to mention appalling MI5 intelligence work, led Britain in mid-1940 to conduct a bizarre mass internment of ‘enemy aliens’, most of them convinced anti-fascists, Jewish refugees from Hitlerism. A political scandal quickly developed in Britain. Most of those wrongly classified and interned were released for war work.
In an increasingly secular age, The Lines of the Hand is an unusual book. Almost half of the poems it contains are direct communications with an evident and accessible God, while others are celebrations of Creation.
Book 1 Title: The Lines of the Hand
Book Author: Kevin Hart
Book 1 Biblio: Angus and Robertson, $6.95 pb, 59 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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In an increasingly secular age, The Lines of the Hand is an unusual book. Almost half of the poems it contains are direct communications with an evident and accessible God, while others are celebrations of Creation.
What major figure in Australian history, apart from Ned Kelly, has had more biographies than Archbishop Daniel Mannix? Librarians can give a decisive answer to this far from rhetorical question. Certainly, Mannix looms large in serious Australian historiography. There are personal studies by Captain Bryan (1919), E.J. Brady (1934), Frank Murphy (1948 and 1972), Niall Brennan (1964), and Walter Ebsworth (1977), and B.A. Santamaria’s short, weighty lecture of 1977. As well, the Mannix shelf is crammed with books like Michael McKernan’s Australian Churches at War, Gerard Henderson’s Mr. Santamaria and the Bishops, Patrick O’Farrell’s The Catholic Church and Community in Australia, and B.A. Santamaria’s Against the Tide – in all of which Mannix is a dominating force. There is no lack of information about the archbishop.
Book 1 Title: Daniel Mannix
Book 1 Subtitle: Priest and Patriot
Book Author: Michael Gilchrist
Book 1 Biblio: Dove Communications, $29.95, 278 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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What major figure in Australian history, apart from Ned Kelly, has had more biographies than Archbishop Daniel Mannix? Librarians can give a decisive answer to this far from rhetorical question. Certainly, Mannix looms large in serious Australian historiography. There are personal studies by Captain Bryan (1919), E.J. Brady (1934), Frank Murphy (1948 and 1972), Niall Brennan (1964), and Walter Ebsworth (1977), and B.A. Santamaria’s short, weighty lecture of 1977. As well, the Mannix shelf is crammed with books like Michael McKernan’s Australian Churches at War, Gerard Henderson’s Mr. Santamaria and the Bishops, Patrick O’Farrell’s The Catholic Church and Community in Australia, and B.A. Santamaria’s Against the Tide – in all of which Mannix is a dominating force. There is no lack of information about the archbishop.
What we need is interpretation. What was the meaning of Mannix? Why did he loom so large? Why all those books? Years ago, when Macmillans were starting their series In Search Of, I suggested they ask Vincent Buckley to write In Search of Daniel Mannix. Nothing, however, came of this and we are poorer for it. Then I heard that Mr Santamaria was turning his hand to a full-length work. In the hope that this book might be conjured forth by academic necromancy, I put it on a reading list for students. To date, alas, there has been no sign of it.
John and Dorothy Colmer have produced Pattern and Voice (Macmillan, $10.95 pb, 234 pp), an anthology of verse which will be of interest to all teachers and students of poetry. It has a blend of classic and contemporary poetry and includes many Australian poets.
Book 1 Title: Pattern and Voice
Book Author: John and Dorothy Colmer
Book 1 Biblio: Macmillan, $10.95 pb, 234 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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John and Dorothy Colmer have produced Pattern and Voice (Macmillan, $10.95 pb, 234 pp), an anthology of verse which will be of interest to all teachers and students of poetry. It has a blend of classic and contemporary poetry and includes many Australian poets.
The soft cover may turn to rag in the hands of Year Nine boys, but for $10.95 you get 233 pages of poetry. It is divided into sections such as ‘Satire and Social Comment’, ‘Ballads’, ‘The Poet’s Eye’, ‘Elegiac Verse’, etc., which all school anthologies seem to consider necessary.
