Contact: writers and Estate Executors who wish to delete material, or who instead wish to give permission to reprint work in full, rather than truncated to 8 lines, as used occasionally herein to avoid the complex labyrinth of copyright, may contact me easily by phone, mail or email here.
Above: the front cover of the second printing
of The New Australian Poetry, 1980
Above: the back cover of the second printing
of The New Australian Poetry, 1980
This site features two reviews of The New Australian Poetry, neither printed with the book, but both published in 1980, one by Rae Desmond Jones here, and one by the late Martin Harrison here.
Individual poems are linked to their appearance in the Contents list, below. Click on the title of the poem, and you will be taken to the file and the point in the file where the poem occurs. To get back to the Contents list, click on the appropriate link in the poem file.
[The New Australian Poetry, page i, not numbered]
THE NEW
AUSTRALIAN POETRY
[The New Australian Poetry, page ii, blank, not numbered]
[The New Australian Poetry, page ii, blank, not numbered]
The New
Australian Poetry
Edited with an introduction by John Tranter
Makar Press
[The New Australian Poetry, page iv, not numbered]
Published by Makar Press, P.O. Box 71, St. Lucia,
Q.4067. The New Australian Poetry was typeset by Rat Graffix
in llpt. Baskerville, one point leaded. The book was designed
by Martin Duwell and printed and bound by Wilke
Printers (Qld) Pty Ltd.
National Library of Australia Card Number and
ISBN 0 909354 32 4
Copyright Selection and Introduction © John Tranter 1979.
Published with the Assistance of the Literature Board
of the Australia Council
[Note: This internet version is based on this printed one,]
Reprinted with corrections 1980
[The New Australian Poetry, page v]
Bruce Beaver
1 from Letters To Live Poets (I)
4 from Letters To Live Poets (XII)
5 from Lauds And Plaints (V)
10 from Lauds And Plaints (VII)
12 from Odes And Days (2)
12 from Odes And Days (18)
13 from Odes And Days (28)
14 from Odes And Days (36)
14 from Odes And Days (39)
15 from Death’s Directives (I)
17 from Death’s Directives (II)
Rae Desmond Jones
19 The Electric Chair
21 Telephone Elegy
23 The Poets
24 The Word Massage
25 The Generator
27 Just After Dark
28 The Front Window
29 Age
[The New Australian Poetry, page vi]
31 & The People
32 Flak
34 Jungle Juice
35 The El Paso Restaurant
36 James Dean
Nigel Roberts
39 Note / To A Friend / On A Commune
40 As Bruce Beaver Does
41 The Anthem/Sam
41 Max Factor Pink
42 Dialogue With John Forbes
42 The Mona Lisa Tea Towel
43 The Guardians of Poetry
46 Aberrant Poetics 3 — Note / To The Typist
47 For the Little Magazines
48 The Quote From Auden
51 Reward / For A Missing Deity
Michael Dransfield
53 Bum’s Rush
54 Fix
54 Parnassus Mad Ward
55 Memoirs of A Velvet Urinal
56 That Which We Call A Rose
56 The City Theory
57 The Hermit Of Green Light
58 Endsight
58 Returning
59 Colonial Poet
60 Chopin Ballade
61 Portrait Of The Artist As An Old Man
61 Courland Penders: Going Home
62 Poem Beginning With A Line
[The New Australian Poetry, page vii]
Vicki Viidikas
64 Four Poems On A Theme
67 Loaded Hearts
68 His Face Broke Up
69 Future
69 Steve and The Big Smoke
Tim Thorne
73 High Country
74 Sideflower
75 Highway (Not included in the book’s Contents page)
75 Whatever Happened To Conway Twitty
76 Advice To A Popular Hero
76 Autumn
78 Interlude: The Final Owl
79 The Shifting Locus
Robert Adamson
80 The Harbour Braces Itself
81 Toward Abstraction / Possibly A Gull’s Wing
81 Between The Silver & The Glass
82 The Unpopular Scale Of Values
83 Action Would Kill It / A Gamble
84 Passing Through Experiences
85 The Rumour
The long poem ‘The Rumour’ was not assigned Parts or Sections in the Contents Page of the anthology; they appear here to provide links to assist the reader.
85 Synoptic: The Open Song (‘A sequence, as objects alight with his touch… ’)
86 The Rumour: Part One, Section 1 (‘the first man to hear / Angels Sounding… ’)
89 The Rumour: Part One, Section 2 (‘the hand of keys / now lifted from its mythology… ’)
90 The Rumour: Part Two, Section 1 (‘She works on me / seems lain down… ’)
91 The Rumour: Part Two, Section 2 (‘ …slowly scratch the word / Christabel on sand… ’)
92 The Rumour: Part Three, Section 1 (‘Suddenly there’s a need to / preamble out… ’)
93 The Rumour: Part Three, Section 2
(‘These poets on poetry / continue to infest… ’)
94 The Rumour: Part Three, Section 3 (‘Rumour’s design / a pressure extending these propositions… ’)
96 The Rumour: Part Three, Section 4 (‘Shelley must have been / our first love… ’)
97 The Rumour: Part Four, Section 1 (‘Source after / Source without his ascending breath… ’)
99 The Rumour: Part Four, Section 2 (‘everything’s involving / freedom now… ’)
101 The Rumour: Coda: Everybody Gathered in Objection (‘Always / as from the start,… ’)
102 Getting Further Away
103 Sibyl
103 Sonnets To Be Written From Prison
106 My Afternoon
106 Nigel’s Eyes
107 My Granny
108 My House
[The New Australian Poetry, page viii]
Martin Johnston
109 The Blood Aquarium
The long poems ‘The Blood Aquarium’ and ‘Microclimatology’ were not assigned Parts or Sections in the Contents Page of the anthology; they appear here to provide links to assist the reader.
109 1 Pan Apolek’s scarf whirls the horizon inward
110 2 Han-shan: ‘The Cold Mountain’. / Sandalwood night…
110 3 ‘There is no riddle’ / moon flute
111 4 The tension of the erect bowstring
111 5 Nolan once tipped up a Riverina landscape
111 6 Han-shan: ‘The Cold Mountain’. / Pascal squats here…
112 7 Flux is a nounless language.
112 8 The track there veers through the fir cones
113 9 Vogelfrei: / a merry-go-round with claws.
114 10 Set apart end of this talking:
114 11 Walking home one night, under a streetlamp,
115 12 Rain slices the night, / moonstalks lick around
115 13 ‘All in the not done, / all in the diffidence
115 14 Green and gold, a girdle scarfs the sky’s edge
116 15 Early morning on the Cold Mountain; / fog skeins
116 16 Curtained in claret hessian / my window
117 17 the mountain crumbles / keeping still
117 18 Tonight the air is delicate / like those tremulous
118 19 The Celestial Stag / according to Jorge Luis Borges
118 20 ‘The colour transmitted / is always complementary
119 21 Shut down shop, hang the willow-pattern,
120 22 And the quarry, pinned in a sapless tussock,
121 23 The statues in the Parthenon used to be painted.
Microclimatology
121 1 Pebble Other people have amber beads
121 2 2 The unreality of roosters I have come reluctantly
122 3 Winter Solstice I Small chill reflections
122 3 Winter Solstice II Yes, Magritte was right:
122 3 Winter Solstice III Summer presents itself
122 3 Winter Solstice IV The wind recapitulates
123 3 Winter Solstice V It’s little consolation to a water-ice
123 3 Winter Solstice VI The peaks across the bay are feet deep
123 3 Winter Solstice VII A sky this size coordinates
123 3 Winter Solstice VIII Defrosting and subsequent
123 3 Winter Solstice IX O wild west wind, I apostrophize you
123 3 Winter Solstice X Under white midwinter sun
123 3 Winter Solstice XI The flies are still alive
123 3 Winter Solstice XII You have to just go / up
124 3 Winter Solstice XIII One hadn’t expected — one hardly
124 3 Winter Solstice XIV These infinitely various mirrorings
124 3 Winter Solstice XV The streets will run green and scarlet
124 4 The Evidence It isn’t as though
125 5 The Rent It has been less than satisfactory.
126 6 The House / for Nadia There is no need to talk
126 7 Notes from the noctarium I Hedgehog
127 7 Notes from the noctarium II When they cut down
127 7 Notes from the noctarium III The frogs still hop, awkward
127 8 The benefactors Mr. Achillopoulos’ Mercantile School
Jennifer Maiden
131 Climbing
131 Branching Death
132 Hypothesis
132 Circe
133 The Sponge
137 Taste
139 The Novelist
137 Fabrics
John Tranter
146 The Plane
146 Sketch For A Portrait Of A Young Woman
147 Julie
147 Mark
148 Red Movie
The long poem ‘Red Movie’ was not assigned Parts or Sections in the Contents Page of the anthology; they appear here to provide links to assist the reader.
148 01 The New Field of Knowledge
150 02 Extract from the Ice Diary
161 Sonnets
The long selection of poems ‘Sonnets’ was not assigned Parts or Sections in the Contents Page of the anthology; they appear here to provide links to assist the reader.
161 01 ‘If you think of Bali…’
161 02 ‘The famous Chinese poet…’
161 03 ‘Famous Poet Jets Home to USA…’
162 04 ‘Giving up women is worse…’
162 05 ‘Yeats rises in the breathless air…’
163 06 ‘Just under the water sheet…’
163 07 ‘Today broke like a china plate…’
163 08 ‘Nothing new arrives from Rio…’
Ken Taylor
166 Society Affair
166 Journal — 1965
[The New Australian Poetry, page ix]
Charles Buckmaster
184 An End To Myth
185 The Beginning
Robert Kenny
from A Book Of Detection
190 The Best Of All Possible Detectives… (1)
191 The Best Of All Possible Detectives… (2)
195 The Detective Unable To Find…
Kris Hemensley
198 A Sunday Jaunt
201 Three Cheers For Bathurst, NSW
204 from The Poem Of The Clear Eye
Clive Faust
213 Near The Park
214 Re-Pair
214 Accommodation
215 Some Hints
216 Setting Up House
216 Foreign Cargoes
Walter Billeter
218 In Memoriam Paul Celan (1920-1970)
[The New Australian Poetry, page x]
Rudi Krausmann
225 from ‘Structures’
225 Beast And Man
225 Fish
226 Crab
226 Ants
226 Elephant
226 Monkeys
227 Snake
from ‘Maps’
227 Great Britain
227 Greece
228 Japan
228 The Fish
Philip Hammial
237 Triple
238 Sag Napoleon
239 Good Friday
239 Of Glory
240 Sadie
242 Petit Guignol
Garrie Hutchinson
243 Learning To Live Together
The long poems that make up ‘Learning To Live Together’ were not assigned Parts or Sections in the Contents Page of the anthology; they appear here to provide links to assist the reader.
243 alfresco ‘we come to breakfast…’
243 blighty ‘I’ve pulled out the last of the peppers…’
244 crasis ‘what combinations are these?…’
244 domiculture ‘some nights the light from the globes…’
245 elecampane ‘I must have a rest now…’
245 findy ‘a stone drops cloudy as a feather…’
246 gamut ‘the whole tribe increases…’
246 helot ‘yawning from the headache of losing myself…’
247 idyll ‘we have to build it inside…’
247 jetsam ‘the stable ocean leaches out…’
247 kickie-wickie ‘for one so small you become the earth…’
248 lentil ‘I must rearrange the house…’
248 mimetic ‘I can see you as your hair grows long…’
249 nodose ‘nostrum sanctum there are swellings…’
249 ogle ‘look I have met them…’
250 pedimanous ‘the loss of cooking was a gift to regret…’
250 quiz ‘what shall we do if the numbers come up?…’
251 recidivist ‘back again, lonely magnet draws…’
251 sundowner ‘I am walking an avenue of trees…’
251 tinge ‘what regrets that things are not more perfect…’
252 unbreeched ‘I am standing here examining a bruised and / damaged cock…’
252 venery ‘how you lean against me…’
253 wriggle ‘let us merely lie here…’
253 xeres ‘there are ends, and sometimes namings…’
John Jenkins
255 Read This!
The long poems that make up ‘Read This!’ were not assigned Parts or Sections in the Contents Page of the anthology; they appear here to provide links to assist the reader.
255 1 A Truly Distinguished Pleasure ‘McLuhan was a bore…’
256 2 You’re Great! ‘Welcome to this poem.…’
257 3 What It Takes ‘Sure, I’m a businessman.…’
259 Play Corners
[The New Australian Poetry, page xi]
John Forbes
260 Jacobean
261 After The Bombs We Invent The Future
262 T.V.
262 Four Heads & How To Do Them
The long poems that make up ‘Four Heads & How To Do Them’ were not assigned Parts or Sections in the Contents Page of the anthology; they appear here to provide links to assist the reader.
262 The Classical Head ‘Nature in her wisdom…’
263 The Romantic Head ‘The Romantic head begins…’
264 The Symbolist Head ‘No longer begins with even…’
264 The Conceptual Head ‘The breeze moves / the branches…’
268 The Photograph
269 Topothesia
270 Angel
270 Rolling In Money
271 A Loony Tune
271 Political Poem
Laurie Duggan
273 Orient
273 Cheerio
274 ELEGY (Melbourne 1940-71) Winter Morning 1971
274 ELEGY (Melbourne 1940-71) St Kilda Notebook 1944
275 ELEGY (Melbourne 1940-71) The Painter’s Letter 1942/46
276 ELEGY (Melbourne 1940-71) Interlude. The Poet 1944
276 ELEGY (Melbourne 1940-71) Notebook 1954
277 ELEGY (Melbourne 1940-71) Coda 1971
277 Sydney Notes
279 Sleeping In The Dining Room
Alan Wearne
Forger At Midnight
A Molester’s Fortune (7am)
The Window Cleaner
Go On, Tell Me The Season Is Over
Grammar Boys Changing Trains
from Out Here
Out There (6)
Growing (7)
Midnight Thru Dawn (9)
Six Poems from ‘The Nightmarkets’
[The New Australian Poetry, page xii]
John A. Scott
Thatching
Three Sonnets Before Her Death
Two Performances
Flooded City
Six Sonnets: Even Their Stories
Five Sonnets: History
The Celebration
Five Sonnets: Studies
A Documentary On Gravity: Eight
Sonnets On Drawings By Rod Moss
[The New Australian Poetry, page xiii]
Acknowledgments
For permission to reprint poems in this anthology, acknowledgment is made to the following:
Robert Adamson: Illumination Press for Canticles On the Skin, Island Press for Swamp Riddles, New Poetry (for the Poetry Society of Australia) for The Rumour, Big Smoke Books for Where I Come From.
Bruce Beaver: New Poetry for Death’s Directives, South Head Press for Letters To Live Poets, Lauds And Plaints and Odes And Days.
Walter Billeter: Contempa for Sediments Of Seclusion.
Charles Buckmaster: New Poetry (for the Poetry Society of Australia) for The Lost Forest.
Michael Dransfield: Maximus Books and the Estate of Michael Dransfield for Memoirs of a Velvet Urinal, University of Queensland Press for Streets of the Long Voyage, and The Inspector of Tides.
Laurie Duggan: Rigmarole Of The Hours for East, Wild & Woolley for Under The Weather.
Clive Faust: ‘Origin’
John Forbes: Angus & Robertson for Tropical Skiing, Sea Cruise Books for On The Beach.
[The New Australian Poetry, page xiv]
Philip Hammial: Island Press for Chemical Cart, Makar Press for Hear Me Eating, Red Press for More Bath, Less Water, The Saturday Centre Poets’ Series for Foot Falls And Notes.
Kris Hemensley: Island Press for A Mile from Poetry, Makar Press for Love’s Voyages, The Paper Castle for The Poem of the Clear Eye, Rigmarole Of The Hours for Sulking In The Seventies.
Garrie Hutchinson: Outback Press for Terror Australis.
John Jenkins: Makar Press for Blindspot.
Martin Johnston: University of Queensland Press for The Sea-Cucumber.
Rae Desmond Jones: Makar Press for Orpheus With A Tuba and Shakti, The Saturday Centre Poets’ Series for The Mad Vibe.
Robert Kenny: Sea Cruise for A Book of Detection.
Rudi Krausmann: Makar Press for The Water Lily, Wild & Woolley for From Another Shore.
Jennifer Maiden: Makar Press for The Occupying Forces, New Poetry (for the Poetry Society of Australia) for The Problem of Evil, Rigmarole of the Hours for Mortal Details, University of Queensland Press for Tactics.
Nigel Roberts: Wild & Woolley for In Casablanca for the Waters.
John A. Scott: Makar Press for The Barbarous Sideshow.
Ken Taylor: Contempa Publications for At Valentines.
Tim Thorne: New Poetry (for the Poetry Society of Australia) for The What Of Sane and New Foundations.
John E. Tranter: Angus & Robertson for Red Movie, Makar Press for The Blast Area and Crying In Early Infancy, South Head Press for Parallax.
Vicki Viidikas: University of Queensland Press for Condition Red, Wild & Woolley for Wrappings.
Alan Wearne: Makar Press for Public Relations, University of Queensland Press for New Devil, New Parish.