Letters to the Editor

Dear Sir, I have not so far seen a review of what I take to be a new series of Australian poets of whom only Henry Kendall and Adam Lindsay Gordon have yet appeared. The publisher (Australian Heritage Books, Brisbane) is aiming to produce a cheap paperback, retailing at $2. Though not a great admirer of Kendall, I bought one of these volumes, attracted by the large format and clear type, printed over some rather odd sepia line-drawings. Poor Kendall! The printer, Ariel Press, has done him a disservice, and the editor has failed the most elementary proofreading. Consider the line: And an angle that we know not led him to the Land unknown! (Christmas Creek) Even worse is to be found on p.13: Where Harpur lies, the rainy streams…(Are) horse with sounds of storms unsleeping.’ (Charles Harpur) Well, that is only a couple of slips, though bad ones. But wait: there are thirty-one errors in thirty-one poems! I have read them through only once, and have probably missed some. Usually it is possible to guess the sense – ‘phatom’ is obviously meant to be phantom, ‘sone’ should be song, and so on; but I cannot hazard a guess at the meaning of ‘haughty goles and lordship of the frost’. I don’t mean there is one error to each poem; in the case of ‘Beyond Kerguelen’ there are five, introducing two marvellous new words to the English language, ‘gree’ and ‘luninous’. This publisher should stick to books of home-builders’ plans, his only other titles. Nancy Cato

From the New Issue

No Country for Idealists: The making of a family of subversives by Boris Frankel

The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1789 by Robert Darnton

The Shortest History of Italy by Ross King

Open Page with Anne Manne

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