Three of Andrew’s literary essays are reproduced on this page:
1. “A Legacy of Joy: In Memory of William Hart-Smith”
2. “Reading and Reflecting on Haiku”
3. “Judge’s Report: Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards”
A Legacy of Joy:
In Memory of William Hart-Smith
by Andrew Lansdown
My first encounter with William Hart-Smith was through the poem “Windmill”. It was 1974, and I was an undergraduate student at the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT, now Curtin University of Technology).
At the age of seventeen I developed a sudden interest in poetry and began to write reams of heart-felt rhymes. A year later, in 1973, I resigned a clerical position in the public service and began studies at Leederville Technical College. My sole desire was to study English literature in order to learn more about poetry, and thereby improve my own writing.
I began for the first time to study the work of established poets, engaging in that wonderfully creative and constructive process of criticising poems, dissecting them to discover not only the what and the why of them, but also the how of them. I began to learn about precision and metaphor and understatement. And in the process I began to recognise the deficiencies in my own work. This was salutary and spurred me to set higher standards for myself. My writing began to improve, and, at the suggestion of my literature teacher, Mr Peter Good, I began to submit poems for publication to several literary journals.
Then in 1974 I commenced English studies at WAIT, where a tutor introduced me to Bill’s poem, “Windmill”:
The windmill by the water-tank
with his see-through face
and base of latticed iron bars
reminds me of a fisherman
standing ankle-deep in the shallows
of a lake full of minnows
featureless horizon to horizon—
who suddenly enmeshes the water
with a throwing-net of galahs.
I cannot recall much discussion of the poem in the class. The tutor had some point or other that she wanted to make, and having made it, passed on. But the poem had a permanent impact on me.
I was impressed by a number of things about “Windmill”, many of which, presumably, I had encountered but not appreciated in other poems. To begin with, there is both the metaphor itself and the extension of it. Fancy likening a windmill to a fisherman, and galahs to his throwing-net! The metaphor is simultaneously original, fanciful, plausible and precise. I cannot recall reading before this time a poem which existed solely as and for an extended metaphor.
Nor can I recall reading a poem that was so appealingly simple in language and structure. And the simplicity extends beyond technique to both subject and theme. The poem eschews the grandiose. It does not pretend to be profound. It says simply, Here is a windmill, here are galahs: this is what they look like. It seeks to convey no more than a pleasure in correspondences and a wonder in nature.
Although I did not realise it at the time, and did not come to realise it until quite recently, “Windmill” had a lasting influence on the development of imagery and metaphor in my own poetry. I did not encounter more of Bill’s poetry for some time. But then, it only takes one poem to teach a principle. The rest is essentially reinforcement.
In 1975 I enrolled in a second year creative writing class, only to discover that Bill was the tutor. I did not particularly enjoy the creative writing classes at WAIT. Too much time was devoted to reading and discussing student work. However, Bill alleviated this tedium by introducing his students to a wide range of poetic forms and concepts.
I remember being impressed by his deep love and wide knowledge of poetry. It was plainly his passion, his life. During the year he communicated not only information about, but also enthusiasm for, poetry. He also told the class a great deal about himself, and presented every student with a copy of his book Minipoems, which he had self-published in 1974.
By the end of 1975 Bill and I had become friends. Another member of the creative writing class, Philip Salom, also developed a friendship with Bill at this time.
Bill went through difficult emotional times during 1976. His relationship with Dorothy, a woman with whom he was living and by whom he had had a son, was breaking up, and he was breaking up along with it.
On Sunday, 19th September, I visited Bill at his house in Lesmurdie, a suburb north-east of Perth. When I arrived he was in a dreadful state. He had been drinking whiskey and taking Valium. He was weeping and cursing, threatening to burn all his work and to kill himself.
He had several boxes of papers on the floor of the lounge room and insisted that he was going to burn them in the incinerator. I tried to persuade him against this, and suggested that he give the boxes to me for safe-keeping. He agreed to let me have them, saying that he never wanted to see them again. I loaded the manuscripts into the car, and spent the afternoon and evening coaxing him away from suicide.
Three days later he wrote to me and asked me to pick up more of his material:
I have another great wad of unpublished verse here. Do you mind if I put it all into a box and leave it at your place?
I know I have been through some sort of crisis the past few days. One effect is to make me want to stop writing poetry for a while, perhaps for a long while.
I give you an absolutely free hand to do what you like with all this stuff of mine …”
I retrieved the box from him and stored it with the others. Shortly after this, Bill was admitted to the psychiatric ward of Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, where he stayed for several months.
In hospital he met a fellow-patient, Mary Morris, and they began to write poetry together—Mary discovering poetry, Bill rediscovering it. Poetry was their healing: they literally wrote themselves out of hospital. Let Me Learn the Steps: poems from a psychiatric ward is the testament to their recovery.
On 4th January, 1977, Bill wrote me a letter (I was not on the telephone): “could you ring me urgently, please … I’d like to have back all the poems and MSS I left with you as I must sort out the mess—destroy a lot, maybe try and salvage others.” I duly returned the boxes to him, pleased to think that I had played a small part in the preservation of Australia’s literary heritage.
In the second semester of 1976, Bill asked me to take over one of his creative writing classes at WAIT, which I did. I continued to tutor at WAIT throughout the following year.
Early in 1977, Bill moved to a flat in Victoria Park, and I used to visit him most weeks on my way home from WAIT. He still had dozens of copies of his Minipoems, and it occurred to me that he might give me twenty, which I in turn could give to my students. So one afternoon at the beginning of May I asked him. He responded that he did not have any Minipoems at the moment, and that he would try to organise some for me during the following week. I thought this was a strange answer, as I could see thirty or forty copies stacked in his bookcase. But I let the matter drop, assuming simply that he did not want to part with any of his remaining books.
A fortnight later, Bill left a note on the door of my house: “I have some more short poems for you at home. Can you call at the flat?” I duly called, and found that he had written 
forty poems for me! He had interpreted my request for his book as a request for new minipoems, and had written them to order! Some of these minipoems, such as “Kangaroo Paw”, are quite marvellous:
A Kangaroo Paw
by the roadsidewith scarlet trousers
is thumbing a lift
with a vivid green thumb.
I included “Kangaroo Paw” and six other minipoems, along with seventeen longer poems, in a feature of Bill’s work that I edited for Artlook magazine in July 1979. To my knowledge, none of the other thirty-three minipoems that Bill gave me have been published.
Bill often complained about the neglect of his work. I pointed out to him that he could not expect his poetry to be published if he did not submit it to magazines and publishing houses. The truth of this seemed to elude him. He was certain that there was a conspiracy of neglect.
However, in 1978 he began to submit work to Quadrant magazine, and there found a friend in the literary editor, Dr Vivian Smith. The feature of his work in Artlook magazine in 1979 also boosted his morale, as did the publication of his Selected Poems by Angus & Robertson in 1985.
Bill returned to New Zealand to live in mid-1978. We corresponded, but with decreasing frequency, until his death in April 1990. (Due to failing eye sight, his last letters were written by Mrs Joan Dale, who acted as his amanuensis.)
I saw Bill again in 1985, when he returned briefly to Western Australia for the launching of his Selected Poems. He stayed with me (not to mention my family) for a week or so. We went for a few strolls along the Swan River and talked a lot about poetry and a little about eternity. He was quite frail and spent much of his time lying on his bed.
In January 1990 Bill asked if I would look out for copies of his Selected Poems, as the publisher’s stock was fully depleted. I scarcely considered the request, thinking it unlikely that I would chance upon any.
A few weeks later I was in Sydney. Being at a loose end one afternoon, I began to browse in a number of bookshops in George Street. I asked at one shop if they had any collections of Australian poetry. The assistant indicated that there might be a few poetry books of some sort upstairs. I trudge up and rummaged among heaps of remainders and second-hand books, only to discover a pile of over one hundred discounted copies of Bill’s Selected Poems! I could hardly credit it. Here by the dozen was a book that was supposed to be out of print, a book that almost certainly would sell steadily if only it were distributed properly! Perhaps there was some substance to Bill’s charge of neglect after all.
I purchased forty copies of the book and posted them to him. He was pleased and disappointed to receive them. I doubt that he had time to distribute many of them before his death in April 1990.
While he was still in Australia, Bill gave me photocopies of his early books, all of which were and remain out of print. One of the books was The Unceasing Ground. The first poem in this collection is “The Surplus”, in which the poet is trouble by the singing of a bird. Reason tells him that:
Song is for mating only. She
listens, he pours it out.
Song is for mating in season.But the surplus, the
overflow. More than is
necessary comesFrom that bird, far
more than is wante I’m
positive, positive!
Beneath my copy of the poem, Bill has written, “This poem is a summation of my attitude to poetry. I want to sing with joy.” In his art, if not always in his life, Bill was true to this vision, this desire. His poetry awakens us to life’s surplus. It is a lasting legacy of joy.
Copyright © Andrew Lansdown
from Abiding Things: poems, stories essays
Andrew Lansdown
Studio (Albury), 1996
ISBN 0-646-28959-4
“A Legacy of Joy: In Memory of William Hart-Smith” has also been published in the following anthology and magazines:
1. Hand to Hand: A Garnering [of poems by and essays on William Hart-Smith], ed. Barbara Petrie (Springwood: Butterfly Books, 1991), “A Legacy of Joy: In Memory of William Hart-Smith”
2. Quadrant, No.272, Vol.XXXIV, No.12, December 1990
3. OzMuze, Vol.1, No.13, October 1991
4. Studio, No.45, Summer 1991-92
* * * * * * * * * *
Reading and Reflecting on Haiku
by Andrew Lansdown
In recent weeks I have been reading R.H. Blyth’s A History of Haiku (Volume One). The two volumes of A History of Haiku follow Blyth’s monumental four volumes, Haiku (which I have managed to purchase through Amazon.com, but have not yet managed to read).
A History of Haiku is an impressive work. Blyth’s knowledge of haiku and of English literature is comprehensive and masterful. Much of the book consists of translations of haiku followed by succinct (and sometimes terse) observation about them. By this process of translation and analysis, Blyth slowly builds up an impression of the nature and function of haiku. Here a commendation, there a condemnation, everywhere an illumination. And while some of his observations are provocative, all are profitable—all help to instil a sense of what haiku are and how they work.
I have particularly enjoyed Blyth’s two chapters on Yosa Buson (1716-1784), the greatest haiku master after Matsuo Basho (1644-1694). Interestingly, Buson disproves a notion prevalent among haiku enthusiasts today—namely, that there is no place for literary devices and techniques in haiku. (Blyth himself does not address this erroneous notion because it was not a notion that was abroad in the 1950s and 1960s when he wrote his works.)
Buson often uses metaphor. Indeed, sometimes the metaphor is the sum of the haiku, as in the following three:
The narcissus flower,—
A beautiful woman
With an aching head.
The colour and scent
Of her retreating figure,—
Departing spring.
Swallowing the clouds,
Spitting out the petals,—
Mountains of Yoshino!
The particular form of metaphor used in the above three haiku is personification. But other instances of metaphor do not involve personification. For example, in the following haiku, Buson asserts that the small white-capped waves passing over the lake are rabbits:
The bright autumn moon;
Rabbits crossing over
The lake of Suwa.
This fantastic association of waves with rabbits—rabbits scampering over a lake in the moonlight, no less!—hints at something else that Buson is fond of doing in his haiku: making up completely fanciful characters and imaginary situations. He has water spirits making love under the moon and bandit chieftains singing songs under the moon. Here he has a crotchety bamboo (personification again!) telling him to keep to himself and to expect no fondness from nature:
“Put up with your own foolishness!”
Says the bamboo, heavy with snow,
Darkening the window.
It is interesting to note Buson’s use of dialogue in the above haiku, and again in the one below:
“A lodging for the night!”
Coming in out of the blizzard
He dashes down his sword.
This haiku is a narrative poem. It has dialogue and dramatic action. That’s some achievement for a three-line, seventeen-syllable poem! Blyth points out that in the Japanese this haiku is rich in sound: “We have here: ya, ka, ka, ta, na, na, da, ka, na, giving the sinister meaning of the demand.” Buson, it seems, loved to use alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia. Blyth points this out again and again. For example, of one haiku he states, “This verse is nothing much in translation, but the sound of it, ha, ma, ya, a, ta; tsu, u, u, ru; mo, no; ri, ni, hi, gives us a feeling of the harmonious warmth of spring.”
Fortunately, when I first became interested in haiku I never knew of the existence of haiku societies and haiku magazines and haiku feuds. So it never occurred to me that haiku was anything other than another form of poetry, and as such subject to the same literary standards and open to the same literary possibilities as other forms of poetry.
If I remember correctly, it was the West Australian poet and novelist, Hal Colebatch, who introduced me to the haiku in 1975. His first collection of poems, Spectators on the shore, contained two sets of haiku, “Dune Haiku” and “Breakwater Haiku”. Of the ten haiku in these two sets, I particularly like these three:
Cranes and pelicans
at the distant salt-marsh edge
stand pale in silver.
(Small sounds are alive:
the click of bird or seed-pod
or a rifle cocked.)
Rats in dim lamplight
blend on the stone like bits
of windblown darkness.
I was fascinated by the idea of a complete poem in such a short form. Fancy writing poems that express all that needs to be expressed in just seventeen syllables arranged in just three lines!
After learning of the existence of haiku from Hal, I searched the university library and found a book on haiku history and theory written by Harold G. Henderson called An Introduction to Haiku. Henderson’s study was a delight and revelation to me, although he did some quirky things, such as translating the haiku of the masters in rhyme and giving each one a title. This use of rhyme weakens many of the translations. But not all of them. Consider this translation of a haiku by Basho, which Henderson has titled “Beauty”:
The usually hateful crow:
he, too—this morning,
on the snow!
Or consider this haunting translation of a haiku by one of Basho’s disciples, Shiko, which Henderson has titled “Maple Leaves”:
Envied by us all,
turning to such loveliness—
red leaves that fall.
Happily, Henderson did not always resort to rhyme in his translations. One of my favourites of his non-rhyming translations is this one by Basho:
On a withered branch
a crow has settled—
autumn nightfall.
This is a stunning example of haiku’s ability to paint a vivid picture, convey a mood and suggest a significance through simple, precise description. And it is an example of the use of meaningful ambiguity—ambiguity that does not confuse meaning, but rather opens it up to several compatible interpretations. Is the night settling like a crow? Or, is a crow settling like the night? Or, are both things happening simultaneously and serendipitously? All are possible interpretations of the text and none does violence to the other.
I began writing haiku soon after learning about them. I published my first haiku, a set of four under the title “Bird Haiku”, in 1977, in Quadrant magazine. Since then, I have published in excess of two hundred haiku in various mainstream magazines and newspapers, including Blue Dog, The Canberra Times, Imago, Island, Meanjin, Quadrant (which published 60 under the title “A Shoal of Haiku” in 2004), Southern Review, The Weekend Australian and Westerly. ABC Radio National has also broadcast my haiku from time to time, most recently in a two-part series on “Australian Haiku” produced by Ron Sims for Poetica.
All of my nine poetry collections have included some haiku, while the short collection Warrior Monk (Picaro Press, 2005) consists entirely of 22 haiku sequences. Here’s the title sequence:
Warrior Monk
i
A warrior-monk,
the heron stands at the brink
of the floating world.
ii
Spear at the ready
the heron warrior-monk
meditates on death.
iii
Meditation, step
the heron warrior-monk
resignation, stab.
iv
The grey heron’s koan:
the monk and the warrior,
how can they combine?
In September, Picaro Press republished my poetry collection, Waking and Always, which was first released by William Collins/Angus & Robertson in 1987. The book is published as part of Picaro Press’s Art Box Series, which “aims to provide low-cost access to significant Australian poetry titles which, for whatever reason, are no longer generally available to the public.”
There are only 17 haiku in Waking and Always, but one of these is one of my favourites. It stands alone and bears the title, “On Haiku”. It reads:
Haiku are pebbles
poets lob into the pond
of our emotions.
This summarises my understanding of how haiku work and expresses my aim in writing them.
References
R.H. Blyth, A History of Haiku: Volume One, The Hokuseido Press, 1963, rpt 1984
Hal Colebatch, Spectators on the shore, Edwards and Shaw, 1975
Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958
Andrew Lansdown, Warrior Monk, Picaro Press, 2005
Andrew Lansdown, Waking and Always (new edition), Picaro Press 2008
Copyright © Andrew Lansdown
This essay was written for and first published in the Australian Poetry Centre’s online magazine, Zest, September/October 2008: http://www.australianpoetrycentre.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/randr-october.pdf
Judge’s Report:
Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards
by Andrew Lansdown
I was pleased to receive an invitation by the Katharine Susannah Prichard Foundation to judge the 2009 Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards. Given that this is the inauguration of the Awards, I felt doubly honoured to be entrusted with this responsibility. My thanks to Fay Dease, Glen Philips, Paula Jones, Katrin Kuenstler and others involved with by the Katharine Susannah Prichard Foundation.
Sixty-nine poems were entered in the Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards, which is a good number for a new competition. As is to be expected, the poems varied greatly in subject, theme, style and tone. Although the quality of the poems was uneven, most were cogent and accessible. This is praiseworthy in an age when pretension and ambiguity are often passed off as profundity.
Before commenting on the winning and commended poems, I would like to make a comment on the submissions generally. I noticed several faults reoccurring in the poems and it may be helpful to mention two of these faults.
The first fault involves the use of clichés. A cliché is a phrase, expression, image or aphorism that has become commonplace. Consider some examples taken from poems entered in the Awards: “busy as bees”; “quiet as a mouse”; “tough as nails”; “time to smell the roses”; “good enough to eat”; “date with destiny”; “time catches up to us all”; “life is what you make it”; “solid as a brick; “salty tears”; and “tender years”. Such expressions are hackneyed and slip out of the reader’s mind as easily as they slipped out of the poet’s pen. There is no freshness or vividness in clichés and that is why they have no place in poetry.
The second fault involves the absence of poetic technique from many of the poems. Many entrants used rhyme but seemed to be unaware of any of the other literary devices available to poets. Metaphor, imagery, alliteration, assonance, consonance, cadence, euphony, subtlety, understatement—these beautiful, powerful devices and approaches were not used, and so the poems lacked the beauty and power that these things can give. Perhaps the general lack of poetic devices indicates a general lack of poetry reading? One way to learn how to write poetry is to learn how successful poets have written it; and to do this, it is essential to read poetry. Certainly, to write poetry well, one needs to read poetry often. A high school or a university poetry anthology (available in secondhand bookshops) could be a good place to start. Alternatively, have a look at the selection of poems by famous poets that I have posted on my website at: http://andrewlansdown.com/favourite-poems/.
Now to the Awards! After considerable deliberation, I selected the following entries for prizes and commendations:
First Prize – Open
First Prize in the Open Awards goes to Roland Leach for “The Middle East Sonnets”.
“The Middle East Sonnets” was the clear winner of the Open section. It is a suite of three sonnets set in and dealing with Palestine. They are not conventional sonnets: they do not have a set rhyme scheme and are not arranged into three quatrains and a couplet (like a Shakespearian sonnet) or an octave and a sestet (like a Petrarchan sonnet). They are sonnets simply in the sense that they are “little songs” in fourteen lines.
Although I had no idea who had written these sonnets, I concluded the writer was probably an established poet. For the poems demonstrated a competence and control that set it apart from most of the other Award entries.
The opening sonnet, “Babel”, recounts the biblical story of how God destroyed the lingua franca of the human race to put a halt to their united effort to build a tower to reach into heaven. God, the Bible tells us, threw the builders into confusion by causing them to speak different languages. Here is how Roland Leach portrays this event:
He sent down winds from a dozen lands,
filled with mountain echoes, voices of birds
and storms, the sounds of water on rock
and let them fill their mouths till their words
separated them, thick and stone as walls.
The second sonnet, “Gaza 2009”, brings us to present-day Palestine and the conflict between Jews and Arabs, Israel and Hamas. Although I do not personally share the poet’s political perspective, I acknowledge the superb way in which he expresses his sympathies and entices the reader’s. The precise detail, the sparse wording, the emotional restraint—these give power to the poem, which concludes:
In this land of walls walls walls they [Israeli soldiers] intrude
into the intimacy of rooms. Graffiti is not enough.
The shelling is not enough. Soldiers drop bags of scat.
Leave their scent like great desert cats.
And the connection between the first and second sonnet is not merely one of geography. The poet seems to be offering the first as an explanation for the conflict between the different people groups in Palestine: their differences go back as far as the Tower of Babel when they were split into different groups through the imposition of different languages.
The third and final sonnet, “Kites”, is closely connected in situation and subject to the second sonnet. It beautifully counterbalances the devastations of war with the enjoyment of an innocent pastime. I can’t resist quoting it in its entirety:
They are flying kites at Beit Lahiya.
Children with kites, women in black burqas.
Attached to the sky. On the beach at Beit
Lahiya where buildings expose their skeletons,
the kites are coloured confetti, they are splashes of paint.
Lifting with the wind, defying gravity.
They are held by blood. Months ago there were
only stray gunmen in alleys. People pleading
for blood. You need wind to defy gravity.
Things fall. It is a law of nature. Bombs
fall. Missiles rise and fall. Buildings expose
their skeletons. It is a law of nature.
On a beach in Gaza with homemade kites
children, women, men, make peace with the sky.
Second Prize – Open
Second Prize in the Open Awards goes to Frederick MacKay for “The Artist’s Painting”.
This poem consists of eight rhyming quatrains (aabb, ccbb, ddbb, eebb, etc). The subject of the poem is the young woman in Renoir’s paining The Excursionist. The poet is troubled by the anonymity of the woman. The first four quatrains each end in the line, “Will I ever know your name?” This stock repetition is skilfully done and gives the poem the “feel” of traditional European forms such as the villanelle and the triolet. It also serves to reinforce the poet’s concerns: Who is this woman? Why is she unknown when the artist is so well known for portraying her? The penultimate stanza is an insightful summing up of the poem’s themes and mood:
If in time … we could go back
We could give your image the missing fact
Give you some glory to share the fame
The respect of being known by name.
Third Prize – Open
Third Prize in the Open Awards goes to Danielle Monique for “In A Dark, Dark Castle”.
“In A Dark, Dark Castle” is a dark, dark fairy tale of a ghoul “With a fat, fat mouth” who delights to eat small, small children! The poet (or narrator) distances herself from her gruesome tale by disclaiming responsibility for it:
My wicked, wicked nanny
Always fond of things quite gory
Took great, great pleasure
When telling me this story:
This opening stanza sets out the structural pattern that the poet skilfully duplicates in the following seven stanzas: an abcb rhyme scheme and a word repetition (“wicked, wicked”/ “great, great”) in the middle of the first and third lines. Were it not for its macabre subject, this narrative poem could pass as a children’s poem.
Commended – Open
There are five Commended entries in the Open Awards, and they are, in no particular order:
1. “Gimlet” by Peta Leiper
2. “A Wife’s Lament” by Carmel Durbidge
3. “Voices: Murujunga/Burrup Peninsular” by Dorothy Dellaway
4. “Goodbye Cancer” by Melanie Daniel
5. “The Life of Crows” by Joan Steele
Preamble to Youth Awards – A Matter of Plagiarism
Before announcing the winning and commended poems in the Youth section of the Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards, I need to offer some words of explanation and caution.
I originally chose a poem titled “Existence” for First Prize in the Youth Awards. The poem’s cover sheet told me that the poet was 14 years old; and after I notified the Katherine Susannah Pritchard Foundation of my decision, I was informed that the person who submitted the poem was a girl and that her name was such-and-such. For reasons that will become obvious, I will withhold her real name and refer to her as “Jane”.
When I first read “Existence” I was impressed with its subtlety and restraint. However, I was troubled by the thought that it was too sophisticated (in thought, emotion and technique) for a 14 year old poet, and I found myself wondering if it might be plagiarised. But I put this thought aside and awarded it First Prize, for it certainly was a standout poem.
However, several days after finalising my selection of the winning and commended poems, I could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. So I did a Google search on the internet—and, to my dismay, I found the poem on several websites. It turns out that the poem, “Existence”, submitted by Jane is in fact a poem titled “Buoyancy”, written in the 13th century by the Persian poet Rumi.
In the light of this discovery, I disqualified Jane and awarded first prize to another entrant instead.
The Bible warns, “Be sure your sins will find you out.” How fortunate it is for Jane that she was found out now, while still young. How unfortunate it would have been if she had won the Youth Award with a stolen poem and had thereby been encouraged and emboldened to go on stealing and deceiving. And how miserable it would have been for her if she had not been found out and so had to keep on covering up her actions for the rest of her life! Here is a real cautionary tale for all aspiring writers: Don’t plagiarise! It is immoral, if not illegal; and the guilty, sooner or later, will be found out and shamed! As for Jane, her real name is on record and she will not be permitted to enter any other awards administered by the Katharine Susannah Prichard Foundation until she is 18 years old.
Finally, I want to say to Jane: Be sorry, but don’t be disheartened. Put this behind you. You are young and this matter need not define you. I and the Award organisers wish you the best and trust you will go on from this incident to become a woman and writer of integrity.
First Prize – Youth
First Prize in the Youth Awards goes to Taylah Howard for her poem “Aussies”. And let not the trouble I have just mentioned detract from Taylah’s achievement!
“Aussies” is a light-hearted celebration of the Australian way of life. It is written in rhyming quatrains and demonstrates a good grasp on the poet’s part of Australian culture and the Australian vernacular. In the space of eight stanzas it touches on such iconic Australian things as G’days, BBQs, gum trees, Holden utes, Akubras, “Waltzing Matilda”, tucker, thongs, chucking a sickie, flies, tinnies, footy, Thorpy, Freeman and Warnie. It is a good-fun poem, cleverly told, and nicely captures the self-depreciating pride that Australians have in their country, customs and colloquialisms. The last two stanzas are worth quoting:
Watching the footy with a pie in the hand,
Cheering our team, proudly we stand,
Chanting our team song, we are as loud as a zoo,
Wearing our team colours, we are a motley crew.
“Crickey it’s a croc,”
“Don’t worry she’ll be right,”
“Pass us a stubby mate
And we’ll party all night.”
Second Prize – Youth
Second Prize in the Youth Awards goes to Matthew Andreotta for his poem “The Last Question”.
The epigraph for Matthew’s poem is taken from The Last Question by Isaac Asimov, and reads: “Man’s last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star …” The poem is a meditation on the folly and possible extinction of mankind. It is a dark, surreal poem with a light, ingenious ending:
His universe began to die, space grew black …
Is this the end? – He thought –
Can this chaos be reversed – can that not be done?
He heard a reply, through this fiery cancer:
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
Commended – Youth
There are four Commended entries in the Youth Awards, and, at random, they are:
1. “The Design of All” by Kieren McRobert
2. “A Revolution” by Siobhan Deacon
3. “Goalie” by Amelia Quaife
4. “The Dream” by Hollie Pablo
Winner, Under 13s
The winner of the Under-13s Awards goes to Nathan Holbrook for “A Cold Emotion”.
“A Cold Emotion” is a fine effort for a poet who is just 12 years of age. It is a dramatic monologue, being written from the viewpoint of a homeless person, and shows an admirable sympathy on the poet’s part for the poor and underprivileged. The poem begins:
The gentle calm of a winter day
The heat has gone, where snow will stay
Some call it beautiful, but not me
There is no artistic vision in a frozen tree
Others see icicles, where I see tears
The richest people just give sneers
Through the window a warm fire burns
When I try to enter, I am turned
Conclusion
To the winning and commended entrants, I express my congratulations. To those entrants who missed out this time, I express my best wishes for next time!
And again, my thanks to the office bearers of the Katharine Susannah Prichard Foundation for entrusting me with the task of judging the inaugural Karen W Treanor Poetry Awards. I think it can be safely said that the Awards have been successfully launched! May they flourish to the benefit of many poets in the years to come.
This report was delivered at the Awards Ceremony at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Foundation on Sunday, 6 December 2009.
© Andrew Lansdown