Poets usually have a choice between writing on mythical themes or of mythologizing the ordinary.  Anything truly mundane it’s…well, prosaic.  For modern writers dealing with everyday life, there needs to be a kind of transcendence introduced, something larger than life itself.  You’ll find that in the poems of even the most down-to-earth, like Simon Armitage or Wendy Cope—a sense that someone brushing their teeth or reading the newspaper actually represents something more.

Of course some topics and themes stubbornly resist mythologizing, as do some locations.  Grimy and degenerate can be poetic – and has been ever since Blake’s reference to “dark Satanic mills”.  But boring?  Boring is hard to make poetic.

Sometimes a poet can overcome this with sheer skill.  John Betjeman’s “Slough”, made famous through TV’s The Office, looks at the most extreme example of boring suburbia and in its ennui and pretensions finds something bigger and more universal than the town.

Modern Australian poetry faces a similar uphill battle.  The golden age of our national poetry was the “bush poetry” of the late-19th and early 20th centuries.  Now the “jolly swagman” and “Man from Snowy River” are gone and we’re left with a more uniform suburban existence.  We’re a lot like other countries, except newer and less certain in our identity.

Adelaide’s Aidan Coleman has it even harder.  The City of Churches is a byword on the east coast for boredom and sameness.  Its residents are forced into a polite defensiveness combined with an awkwardness about talking themselves up lest they be laughed at.

So you know what he means when he writes in “Mythology” that:

“Home never seemed worth writing about.
The place was post-history”

As a first-generation resident (Coleman was born in Wales), he identifies with his town, but doesn’t see in it anything worthy of poetry.  A bit of a dilemma for a poet!

So he does what the modern British poets have done faced with a similar ambivalence towards their own country and a tendency to understate—he sucks it up and writes some poems anyway.

Out of it we get a volume like 2005’s Avenues & Runways in which housing estates, airport terminals and government research facilities are given the poetic treatment we once reserved for natural wonders.  And it works because it’s clever and simple and speaks to all the ordinary poetry readers who aren’t blessed to live somewhere timeless and dramatic.

It’s the same way that a clever painter or photographer can turn an ugly scene into something remarkable.  It’s the reason we read poetry in the first place.  It’s far less efficient than prose at transmitting facts or information, but it’s much better and communicating the things behind the things, the subconscious feeling that the ordinary isn’t really that at all.

—David Pullar

Last week was my first Sydney Writers’ Festival—I somehow missed it completely last year.  Even this year I only managed a paltry two sessions, but it was sufficiently worthwhile to keep a close eye out for next time.

The first session, “Writing and Research”, was a panel discussion between four writers of creative non-fiction.  Alice Pung, who I’ve discussed previously on Re:Print, spoke engagingly about her desire to subvert expectations of Asian writing.  Her main point was the efforts she went to avoid what she called the “Tony Robbins” narrative of Wild Swans and Amy Tan’s books.  “The biggest adversity I’ve overcome was head lice in Grade Two,” she quipped.  I’m not sure what this had to do with research, but it was entertaining.

Most of the panelists struggled to get a word in, thanks to the gregarious investigative journalist Gideon Haigh.  He was meant to talk about his James Hardie exposé Asbestos House, but ended up giving a sneak preview of the upcoming abortion history The Racket.  A significant part of his investigation involved 1960s court transcripts from abortion trials and they make fascinating reading—so fascinating in fact that Haigh spent half his time reading them verbatim.

The closing address, the second session I was able to attend, was presented by Junot Diaz.  Author of buzz novel and Pulitzer Prize winner The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Diaz spoke on the topic “All Our Gratitudes, or Literature Is Not Forever”.

I didn’t like Oscar Wao’s style much, but it had a lot of heart.  The same could be said of Diaz’s speech.  His delivery was mostly in a monotone and read straight from a pile of A4 notes.  The overly formalist structure seemed more appropriate for an essay than a speech, but that’s to be expected from a writer—possibly less so for a college lecturer, though, which is what Diaz is in his day job.

The heart came through when Diaz talked about librarians and books and reading as the things that had “saved [his] life”.  Literature is not perfect, he told us, but we love it because it reflects our own imperfections.  Nor is it eternal, as his title pointed out, but we enjoy the ephemeral pleasures.  It was an appropriate reflection on the importance of books for a festival dedicated to their celebration and appreciation.

Diaz closed his brief (25 minute) address with a reference to the importance of outside voices.  As a Dominican, Diaz brings a different perspective to the mostly domestic line-up at this year’s festival.  On reflection, it seems odd that he didn’t take the opportunity to draw on that perspective in his closing address.

—David Pullar

The most notable thing about the Australian book industry is just how small and isolated it is.  There are only a handful of major publishers (mostly Australian operations of larger UK and US houses) and the smaller publishers are very, very small. 

With only 20 million inhabitants and a serious reading population much smaller than that, there simply isn’t the critical mass that would allow independent and new talents to find a foothold. And “making it” in Australia doesn’t equal “making it” in practical terms—things like reaching a large audience and earning a living from writing.  The number of local authors with any substantial profile can be counted on a couple of fingers.

Australia does not have as well-developed systems for nurturing young authors as North America or Europe.  Our literary journals are small and generally conservative.  Our creative writing schools do not have high profiles, nor are their links with the global publishing industry very strong.

Even to achieve success and recognition from local critics, writers are often expected to gain overseas validation.  Our biggest cultural and literary icons are usually those who have found success in the wider world.  To be simply a local taste is to be perceived as a B-lister: maybe good for a trashy read, but not enough for real critical acclaim.  It’s probably unfair, but it’s hard not to see it as the difference between an Olympian and the winner of the Upper Bradfield Little Athletics U14 long-jump.

An interesting case study is young Australian writer Max Barry.  American readers are actually more likely to have heard of Barry or read one of his books than his fellow Australians.  Even though Barry is Australian born-and-bred and even lives in Melbourne, he is only belatedly receiving some attention in his homeland.

I came across Barry with his 2006 novel Company, an offbeat corporate satire inspired by Barry’s time with Hewlett Packard.  It was a funny, if imperfect, novel and it pointed to an exciting new talent.

Except that it wasn’t so new—because Barry had already published two novels in the US, Syrup and Jennifer Government, both mostly unnoticed in Australia.  In fact, Scribe Publications has just re-issued Syrup for the Australian market, a mere 9 years after its first publication, in response to the success of Company.

Barry didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter.  As an aspiring writer with a populist bent, why would you bother “paying your dues” in Australia, where the most you could expect would be a short run with a niche publisher with your book stocked in three shops?

Yet he had an option that many local writers do not have—the advantage of writing American-themed books, rather than idiosyncratically Australian work.  Sadly, a lot of writers telling Australian stories are going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Australia is not exotic enough for publishers to see escapist potential, but is too foreign to be an easy sell.

In that sense the Australian industry serves its purpose by keeping alive our national tales and experiences.  But there will always be the suspicion that those who don’t sell well offshore don’t quite have what it takes.

—David Pullar

The migrant experience has been the topic of libraries full of books: some good, some poor; some true, some fictionalised.  The archetypal story sees a family or an individual leaving behind a country troubled by famine or war or oppression to seek a better life.  On arrival in their new homeland, they work hard to establish themselves but encounter linguistic and cultural difficulties, if not open racism.  Eventually they triumph through a mixture of assimilation, ethnic pride and hard work.

For nations built predominantly by migration, such as Australia, Canada or the United States, these stories are part of the founding myths: the tales of Pilgrim Fathers, Huguenots, Irish potato-farmers and Eastern European peasants.  Yet the stories have become possibly more dramatic as the twentieth century brought with it unprecedented levels of dislocation.  The refugees since World War II have been almost of a different kind: more different to the people they are joining than previous groups and scarred by atrocities that their new neighbours cannot even conceive.

Australia, a nation that a mere forty years ago was excluding migrants on the basis of skin colour, has had a troubled relationship with these newer arrivals.  The influx of Vietnamese and Cambodians in the 1970s and 1980s was met with caution and even hostility.  Yet those who fled Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot have been in Australia for a generation and have adult children born and raised in Sydney or Brisbane or Melbourne.

Alice Pung’s Unpolished Gem tells the story of one such second-generation Australian.  This slight remove from the typical migrant experience is apparent from the first sentence: “This story does not begin on a boat.” As a twenty-something, born after her parents’ arrival in Australia, Pung’s experience has been one of tension between family and environment.  This memoir tells the story of growing up in a Cambodian Chinese household in western Melbourne and straining under the expectations and rules of a family partially disconnected from the surrounding culture.  Unpolished Gem tells the story of a girl finding an identity as someone both Asian and Australian.  As the old cliché goes, she had to learn to live between two worlds.

Pung’s book is remarkable for its flair and its eye for the little quirks of migrant life: the grandmother and her disbelieving gratitude for government pensions; and the family’s progression from hostels and charity clothing to suburban one-upmanship.  Her depictions of family members are affectionate but cutting.  The fact that she has written this memoir while both parents are still living is courageous, to say the least.

Similar in many ways is Nam Le’s story “Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice”, published in Zoetrope: All Story in 2006 and collected in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007.  The title of the anthology suggests something interesting: Nam Le is a Vietnamese-born Australian, now living in the USA.

“Love and Honour” tells of a young Vietnamese Australian writer studying at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (as the author did) and receiving a visit from his elderly father.  The narrator is reluctant to write stories about migrant life or Vietnam, preferring zombie fiction.  Even as he tries to capture his father’s stories of war-time Vietnam as a response to writers’ block, he is conflicted.

This is a dilemma common to many second-generation migrant writers.  They have spent much of their lives fighting against stereotypes and seeking to define a new identity as something more (but not less) than the children of foreigners.  The last thing that a talented young writer wants is to be pigeonholed as an “ethnic” voice, with all the restrictions that would entail.  Yet at the same time, these stories are part of their make-up, defining who these writers are.  The best path seems to be to write about it once and then move on.

I can only suppose that Alice Pung’s next book will be about zombies.

—David Pullar

Australians are quick to claim celebrities as our own, even when the connection is tenuous. Russell Crowe is ours (born in New Zealand); Naomi Watts (United Kingdom) likewise. Mel Gibson (United States) was, but that’s been kept quiet since his drunk-and-racist driving incident.

So it’s no surprise to see that J.M. Coetzee, newly naturalized as an Australian citizen, is already thoroughly “one of ours”. The South African-born novelist and Nobel laureate has spent most of his professional career in his homeland, but now resides in Adelaide. His recent works have even taken on Australian characters and locations.

The latest sign of his adoption as an Australian was his invitation to attend the Australia 2020 Summit this weekend. Australia 2020, a talk fest convened by new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, has some vague nation-building aspirations and Coetzee’s role is to join with 99 others to plan pathways “towards a creative Australia”.

The “creative Australia” stream is heavy with celebrities and big names, so it’s no surprise that our only living Nobel Prize for Literature winner would be invited. Many commentators are asking whether celebrities are the best people to determine national direction—as is how 100 people with individual ideas and agendas can agree on concrete plans for national creativity in two short days. Perhaps Hugh Jackman will go head to head with Baz Luhrmann’s wife Catherine Martin in a battle over theatre funding, while screenwriter Geoffrey Atherden will try to pitch his latest TV show to Joel Edgerton.

The choice of Coetzee, for all his newness as an Aussie, is one of the better selections. Unlike many of the established voices invited to attend, Coetzee is not part of any local mafia or interest group. He can bring a freshness of approach that the patronage-hungry locals may lack. In all likelihood, though, the notoriously taciturn Coetzee will probably just smile benignly throughout the weekend and write a book about it later.

A problem for the Summit is the vague nature of “creativity”. Australia’s working-class roots still impart to residents a distrust of “high” art from an early age. Television and movies are generally popular, although Australian movies are currently out of favour. Books by footballers and cricketers and J.K. Rowling are popular, but Coetzee sells far fewer copies than fellow South African expat Bryce Courtenay. Opera, ballet, and theatre that isn’t Mamma Mia! are niche tastes.

Yet the 2020 attendees span all these aspects of art and culture—so discussions of funding and priority may be particularly heated. Just exactly who “needs” funding and what Australia as a nation gets out of the arts—these are questions that will hopefully be asked. The contrast between a writer such as Anna Funder, whose excellent Stasiland was assisted by local arts funding, and Coetzee, who comes from a completely different system, will be interesting.

Maybe even a celebrity-heavy discussion forum can give some guidance on the future of Australian art. At least Germaine Greer’s invitation was lost in the post.

—David Pullar