Ann Vickery

‘What is it that distinguishes “the experience of being in the archives” from other types of research?’ The introduction to The Intimate Archive indicates that this is a crucial question underpinning the book. Neither dry repositories of records nor merely the random detritus of lives, archives are understood as constructed artefacts, shaped by cultural and political practices as well as by chance. Their meaning also depends on the historical moment: what is overlooked by one generation of researchers may be important to another. What is regarded as evidence by a researcher trained in literature may be questioned by an historian. Particular interests, as well as factors like gender, may also influence the materials researchers select from papers and how they interpret them.

I have commented before in ABR that literary criticism is a rara avis in Australia’s publishing world, so perhaps it is not surprising that Ann Vickery has had to find an overseas publisher for this important contribution to Australia’s literary and cultural history. Whatever its provenance, I have a particular reason for welcoming this contextualising study of the work and times of six women poets of the early twentieth century: Mary Gilmore, Marie Pitt, Mary Fullerton, Anna Wickham, Zora Cross, Lesbia Harford and Nettie Palmer.

As the size of Jennifer Strauss’s two-volume scholarly edition of Mary Gilmore’s verse attests, Gilmore (1864–1962) is one of the most prolific poets in Australian literature. At around 800 pages, Volume 2 complements the first volume (which Vivian Smith reviewed in ABR, February 2006). Together, these two volumes represent the most detailed editing of an Australian poet to date. Rayner Hoff’s bronze statue of Gilmore’s head on the cover signals the consolidation of Gilmore’s reputation in the last thirty years of her life. (In 1933 Gilmore became a life member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers; five years later, she was made Dame of the British Empire.)

With a title like Metre, you know that this magazine is not attracting readers by its chic and sexy appeal. Our own home-grown mags, such as Otis Rush, Salt, and HEAT, at least offer their poetry with a bit more adventure and promise. Furthermore, by combining poetry with a range of fiction, cultural criticism, essays or reviews, such local efforts release poetry from solitary confinement and bring new energies into it. In contrast, Metre seems nostalgic for older times, for days when poetry demanded respectful homage. As the staid European cousin, its conservative title is buoyed only by the overarching gaze of ambition.