Volume 69 Number 1, 2010

Editorial

‘In an age governed by the stomach-and-pocket view of life, and at a time of war and transition, we still strive to “talk poetry.” For we believe that it is our duty to do so … Literature and art, poetry and drama do not spring into being at the word of command. Their life is a continuous process growing within itself, and its suppression is death. Therefore we determined to commence publication of the Meanjin Papers. Media for similar expression are sadly lacking in this country.’
—Foreword from Meanjin Number 1, by Clem Christesen, December 1940

Seventy years on you could argue that not much has changed. Meanjin plans to celebrate its 70th birthday in a range of ways, but first up we plan to torture you with two crosswords by the man Geoffrey Rush dubbed the ‘Sergeant Pepper of cryptic crosswords’, David Astle. The clues, both cryptic and straight, are embedded in stories David has written. We’ll also publish the best (submitted) entry that includes those twenty-two correct answers in a micro story.

My interview in this issue is with Steven Amsterdam. In the future as writ in Amsterdam’s Things We Didn’t See Coming, climate change, civil wars caused by religious fundamentalism, and pandemics are only part of the battle. What is unsettling, of course, and gives the book power, is that the world Amsterdam transports us to is a totally plausible extension of this one. While he considers himself to be a speculative rather than an SF writer, as science fiction expert Peter Nicholls once remarked in an interview (Meanjin 62:1), science fiction claims many as its own: ‘Science fiction critics try and colonise previously existing genres and say “This is ours. Utopia by Sir Thomas More is ours.” ’ However you define Things We Didn’t See Coming, Nicholls’ comment that science fiction is ‘deeply contemporary fiction and not only enacts contemporary neuroses, it sometimes also activates them while they’re still dormant’, is relevant to a reading of Amsterdam’s novel—as it is to the futuristic short story by Jennifer Mills we publish in this issue, ‘An Innocent Man’.

In this issue we, like Amsterdam, touch on climate change (‘On the Lip of a Crater’ by Eleanor Whitworth and several of our poems, including ‘Climate Change’ by Roberta Lowing). Toni Tapp Coutts, a writer I met when in the Northern Territory last year, writes of a life whose rhythms are dictated by two seasons: the Dry and the Wet. And while we didn’t intend it as a formal theme, religion concerns many of our contributors. Overland editor, Jeff Sparrow, asks whether it’s too easy for the New Atheists to laugh at God; John Potts looks at the ways in which the religious impulse plays out in our secular world; Paul Mitchell considers the spiritual in contemporary Australian novels; Helen Barnes-Bulley takes issue with those who tell her she cannot appreciate religious art; and Carol Major looks at the role of the church in adoption policies in the 1960s. As well, several writers tell more personal stories. Terin Tashi Miller meets the Dalai Lama, Stella Glorie describes growing up in a strict Catholic household, and Maurilia Meehan tries, but fails, to fly with the help of transcendental meditation.

In the first of our Meanland essays Ken Wark discusses his experience of writing a book online, and considers a new approach to copyright (do check out Overland’s Meanland essay for March—Margaret Simons has written a terrific essay on the ways in which social media are transforming journalism, and reading) and, in our CAL essay Lorin Clarke has written a passionate and engaging piece on contemporary Australian theatre. Two of our contributors consider the importance of good teachers: Phil Brown writes an account of working with his mentor, Bruce Dawe, while Jane Grant provides a rigorous analysis of the intellectual legacy of Melbourne University’s charismatic Leavisite, Professor Samuel Louis Goldberg. This is set alongside a critical piece written by Goldberg on the poet A.D. Hope that was first published in Meanjin in 1957.

Because of the constraints of production, there are often issues the print issue of Meanjin can’t cover in a timely manner. If it had been possible I would have been interested to provide a perspective on the closing of that now famous Melbourne inner-city hotel, purveyor of music and sticky carpet, the Tote. Victoria’s Liquor Control Act of 1987, enacted by the Cain government, made Melbourne the envy of most other Australian states. That law was passed, after much toing and froing, following the report and recommendations by Dr John Nieuwenhuysen. Nieuwenhuysen suggested deregulation, an exploration of ways of managing alcohol abuse other than overregulating the industry, and administrative reform (see Michael Harden’s terrific book Melbourne: The Making of a Drinking and Eating Capital). That is, he called for sweeping changes to laws that had been only a step up from the days of the six o’clock swill, laws that had allowed a group of about 2000 hoteliers to have a stranglehold on drinking—and the profits thereof—in the state. When New South Wales attempted, a couple of years ago, to modify its laws in the hope that smaller venues and bars might flourish as they do in Melbourne, the response of the president of the NSW branch of the Australian Hotels Association, John Thorpe, was telling: ‘We aren’t barbarians, but we don’t want to sit in a hole and drink chardonnay and read a book.’ What seems like a backhander at Melbourne and its arty pretensions was really a panicked plea to allow a relatively few, large hotels to rake in profits.

Victoria’s current government would do well to remember Nieuwenhuysen’s suggestion that we need to explore ways of managing alcohol abuse other than through formal regulation. Draconian new liquor laws in this state mean that if a pub is classified as ‘High Risk’, associated costs increase by about 500 per cent. In the case of the Tote, the Collingwood police themselves stated it was not a venue that had ever caused them problems, so this categorisation was mystifying despite being justified as a response to the pub’s 3 a.m. licence. But regardless of the facts of the matter, and regardless of what does actually happen to the Tote (it may yet be saved), the issue is that these laws favour big businesses that can absorb a dramatic rise in costs. This means the large venues that are at the centre of the 24-hour drinking culture and associated violence—such as those in King Street—stay open, while smaller venues like the Tote are forced to close down. And it’s those smaller, locally owned businesses—pubs, bars, bookstores and, yes, literary journals—that are an essential part of the fabric of Melbourne, and make it a creative, not a parochial, city in which to live.

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Contents

Editorial by Sophie Cunningham

Newsreel

• With Jessica Au, Kate Grenville and Eleanor Hogan

Meanjin in Colour

• On the Lip of a Crater by Eleanor Whitworth

• Seventy Years – Two Crosswords by David Astle

Essays

• CAL/Meanjin Essay: “Like this little spirit that wafts”: Reflections on Contemporary Theatre in Australia by Lorin Clarke

• A Critical Mind: On Sam Goldberg by Jane Grant

• Rewind: The Poet as Hero: A.D. Hope’s ‘The Wandering Islands’ by S.L. Goldberg

• Memories of a Mentor: Bruce Dawe by Phil Brown

• Reading in an Age of Change Essay: Copyright, Copyleft, Copygift by McKenzie Wark

• Unholy Enthusiasm by Jeff Sparrow

• A Novel Approach to Religion by Paul Mitchell

• Heavens Below: The Religious Impulse in a Secular World by John Potts

• Engineering Redemption: Adoption Policy in the 1960s by Carol Major

• The Book of Famous Paintings by Helen Barnes-Bulley

Memoir

• In The Dalai Lama’s lap by Terin Tashi Miller

• Who Ya Gonna Call? by Stella Glorie

• Flying School Drop Out by Maurilia Meehan

• Walking the Wet by Toni Tapp Coutts

Interview

• New territories: Sophie Cunningham talks to Steven Amsterdam

Fiction

• Art Brut by Sue Booker

• Sarah by Philip Canon

• Urobos, graphic story by Bruce Mutard

• And the next morning he was shipwrecked by Bronwyn Mehan

• An Innocent Man by Jennifer Mills

• Quaker’s Hat Bay by Fiona McGregor

• Stripped: Part Eight by Caroline Lee

Poetry

• Rondeau, Ridge A Antarctica by Alexandra Bates

• Berlin-Buch, August 2009 by Peter Boyle

• Broome Song by Stuart Cooke

• Lu Xun, Your Hands by Eileen Chong

• Seeing Goats & On Waking by Anthony Lawrence

• Climate Change by Roberta Lowing

• Following the Fires by Geoff Page

• Images, the outside world by James Stuart

• It’s a little early, but let’s call it quits; or, my worst habit by Mark Tredinnick

• The fence is gone by Maria Zajkowski