It goes without saying that there are culturally sensitive documents; but it goes with saying that those are contested, that attempts need be made regardless, that the archive is bountiful and that one can visit country without ever leaving one’s computer. If Gerald Murnane can become fluent in Hungarian and never leave the state of Victoria, why shouldn’t people know what julajulara means? There is a great silence on Indigenous languages in the poetry community, not so much a cult of forgetfulness but a willed dismissal of that which is *actually* difficult. Unless one comes to terms with, plays with, cultivates a relationship with Indigenous language one cannot expect to create a poetry that resonates with the nature and society here. It is the firm bedrock of language reality that exists in Australia. All else is topsoil.
This heavy presence of English contributes to the lack of diversity in reading and influence, which skews American and Western European (often in translation). This comes about in the poets of influence (Mallarme for example) and emerges in names mentioned explicitly in the poetry itself, in the content in other words. This may be as the subject of a whole book – Jessica Wilkinson on Percy Grainger – or in specific poems – Melinda Bufton with Mina Loy in ‘Dealbreaker’. This is not to suggest that locals don’t matter, but that influence still comes from on high, which is no one poet’s fault. I am a fan of Wilkinson and Bufton for example, and think their work as feminist poets is salutary, but this doesn’t mean we should not talk about race. If anything they open up a space into which we can discuss this openly and constructively.
Nowhere is the lack of diversity clearer than in review culture, which might be said to reveal the points of reference in the network if only because that is what reviewers project onto poets, of whom they read in their reading. As Ben Etherington wrote in ‘The Poet Tasters’:
… the aesthetic parameters of Australian poetry criticism are decidedly Eurocentric. I don’t use the term to suggest a limitation of individuals. The poetic education and tastes of those in the poetry community are structurally Eurocentric. It seems all Australian poets took the same two courses at university: ‘British and Irish poetry from Wordsworth to Heaney’ and ‘Modern American poetry from Whitman to L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E’. A handful also took a course on French symbolism. When Australian poet critics say ‘poetry’ they mean a particular verse tradition and a sequence of aesthetic developments. Confining ourselves to English-language poetry, you could count on one hand references in all 2013 reviews [which totaled 247] to poets from the Caribbean, South and South-East Asia, African and Pacific nations (including New Zealand). Critic Watch would like to cite examples, but you can’t cite an absence.
As a specific example of this Eurocentrism, one need only cite Geoff Page’s review of Cameron Lowe’s Circle Work in the Australian Book Review. But, as Etherington states, it is a structural issue, much like the lack of Indigenous language knowledge in the mainstream poetry ecosystem and the ongoing funding for symphony orchestras by the Australia Council. The decline of canonical studies seemed pronounced a generation ago, but the rear-guard action, which has taken the form of an ongoing preference for that cited above, means the poetry being produced today is a poor reflection of the society we live in.
It hardly needs re-stating then that Australia is one of the most culturally diverse societies in the world. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census of 2011, over a quarter (26%) of Australia’s population was born overseas and a further one fifth (20%) had at least one overseas-born parent. Poets working today need their writing to reflect their local experience. What that looks like depends, of course, on the life lived but one can assume that means interacting with a diversity of cultures. We cannot jettison Europe or America, but if one so easily eats burritos why shouldn’t one read Homero Aridjis? To not engage with the linguistic possibilities afforded by diversity means that we fail to understand the world that is already here, let alone the one that is coming closer to us day by day. No wonder the sales figures are small, no wonder many feel as though they are preaching to the converted. We need diversity and not simply through the propagation of a specific identity politik, or outside our most prestigious journals and settings.
This is not aided by the ongoing geographical limitations of poetry influencers. It is naïve to think that Melbourne and Sydney do not dominate poetry today in real terms – publications, festivals, journals, circulation. The volume and strength of publishing houses makes it clear that these two cities are the epicentres. For example, in Melbourne there is Cordite, Whitmore, 5Islands, Black Pepper, Hunter and Spinifex. In Sydney there is Giramondo, Puncher & Wattmann, Grand Parade Poets and Pitt Street Poetry. Cordite keeps growing and growing, and Giramondo alone covers an awful lot of poetic territory when it comes to books. Needless to say, there are publishers in other places – UQP (Brisbane); Walleah (Hobart); Fremantle and UWA Press (Perth); Ginninderra (Canberra); Brandl & Schlesinger (Blue Mountains), Vagabond (Tokyo).
However, no matter where we are in Australia, one generally sees an urban or rural consciousness in the type of poetry published that sits at odds with the suburban material where so many live. There is, it seems, a fetish for the country voice and the urban affect. But to put it another way, how are we to reflect on the majoritarian existence of people here when our publishing houses are based in a handful of electorates? There are of course, people to counter this, people who write about suburbia from Jill Jones to Lachlan Brown, Fiona Wright to Zenobia Frost. And their work, for this alone, should be applauded.
