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I shall always have to stand indebted to you’.2 Jack Blight’ by his friend and mentor, However it is clear that Blight worked very hard TJudith Wright. She enclosed it in a letter not only on his own craft, but also at studying to Blight, dated 4 March 1964, in appreciation of the poetry of his contemporaries. He made a his third published work, A beachcomber’s diary scrapbook in which he kept ‘every serious poem (1963).1 Most people associate Blight’s name with published in the Bulletin from 1939 until well into his poems about the sea for good reason: he the 1950s’.3 He also clipped poems from the Age, published another selection of sea sonnets, My the Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald for beachcombing days, in 1968, and yet another, Holiday sea sonnets in 1985. These books were the culmination of his search for a voice, a The John Blight papers in the Fryer Library distinctive voice to be raised above the traditional (UQFL70) include drafts and typescripts of his lyrical or narrative forms. He chose the sonnet individual poems (published and unpublished) form for his sea poems. ‘I, naturally, don’t write and those that were selected for his eight books in the sonnet form just for luck,’ he explained of poetry published between 1945 and 1985. Tracing his development as a poet through these was 3.30 am!]. ‘I need such a form to cut myself papers reveals three distinct phases of work: down. It’s a good discipline.’ STEPHANY STEGGALL WRITES ABOUT THE PAPERS OF POET JOHN BLIGHT IN FRYER LIBRARY, PARTICULARLY HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH JUDITH WRIGHT. Douglas Stewart in his position as editor at The old pianist (1945) and The two suns met Angus & Robertson prepared the ‘blurb’ for A (1954)–fragmentary, perhaps, and revealing a beachcomber’s diary. He described the obsession search for form; secondly, the 1960s–the sea that Blight had with the sea: ‘The sea haunted sonnet phase when Blight found a place and him; and he haunted the sea; and the result is this subject, ‘out from the beach…from the littoral’, curious, obsessed, dedicated, thoroughly original in which he could explore many ‘large’ as Martin Duwell described it in his Introduction to John Blight: selected poems 1939-1990, the whale …’. As editor of the Bulletin’s Red Page Blight wrote from ‘a more intense engagement from 1940 to 1960, Stewart had mentored Blight with experience [rather] than the intense and published some of his earliest poems. When observations of the sea’. Three books were Stewart left the Bulletin, Blight credited the editor published in this era–Hart (1975), Pageantry for with showing him the way to write publishable a lost empire (1977) and The new city poems poetry: ‘If my work ever stands up to anything, (1980)–as well as a selected work in 1976. FRYER FOLIOS | JUNE 2011 11 published in the Bulletin. In those days that was something to really aspire to in being published in the same journal that had published the likes of we should meet each other in fact, the way one was to recognise the other was by standing on a particular part of Adelaide Street with a rolled up copy of the Bulletin under the arm.’6 Generally speaking, however, Blight was dismissive of literary groups and institutions that he collectively termed ‘the literary mob’. He likened himself to ‘a crusty old hermit crab’, complained about ‘the alienation of academics from literature’ and decided that it was ‘a good thing to live far removed from their literary world which is stultifying and frightening’. This may have contributed to special affection he held for Wright who told him that she had to ‘spin round too much on the edge of the literary maelstrom’.8 He referred to her correspondence as ‘breath of While the evolution of a published oeuvre is life’ letters. They sustained him as a poet, as the always fascinating, in Blight’s case it is the correspondence with other poets, especially commented on trends in Australian poetry. When Judith Wright, which reveals so much about him. Wright wrote to Blight about Preoccupations in His ‘conversations’ in each letter–‘one thin frail Australian poetry, her book of criticism in which line of friendship’–formed the basis of what he she devoted a long and thoughtful section to called ‘this friendship ever happy between us’.4 her friend’s work, she spoke to him about ‘the Their letters are a rich fund of commentaries on the early 1960s, yet after many more years known writers and editors including Bruce the correspondents still spoke of the same Beaver, Beatrice Davis, Rosemary Dobson, Mary Gilmore, Rodney Hall, AD Hope, David and subject; refusing to court public favour; Malouf, James McAuley, Les Murray, Tom Shapcott, Douglas Stewart and Val Vallis. Wright reassured Blight that he was capably Blight corresponded with many of these negotiating the problems. ‘You’ve kept on your Judith Wright. and in the process I think you’ve avoided most of the pitfalls that other writers playing to their Blight’s papers contain folders of galleries or trying to impress the overseas critics correspondence between the two poets: by knowing their moderns have fallen into with a a creative connection that they maintained plop, and developed your own personal line and for more than forty years. Blight depended way of looking at things in a way others haven’t on Wright for criticism, guidance and … ’.9 She encouraged his adoption of the mantle encouragement. He often enclosed poems he was to wear for most of his writing career: that for her appraisal, making dismissive statements of a loner whose poetry was in no way derivative in his letters such as, ‘I’ve put another sonnet Above: Pencil portrait in for you to read. Who else will ever read them of John Blight by an overall reading of contemporary Australian Greg Rogers, used for any more?’ However Wright was more optimistic poetry. Blight assumed the reputation of writing the cover of Blight’s telling him that A beachcomber’s diary was a independently as his defence against being Selected Poems book that would last and would attract many ignored or misunderstood: ‘Group movements 1939-1990 (University readers. ‘I can see myself still reading it at and “schools” of poetry have always left me cold,’ of Queensland Press, he claimed.10 He did move closer to the literary 1992). Papers of out more things from it. I don’t know any book community late in his career, but he always Gregory Rogers, more packed with succinct meditation’.5 UQFL494, Box 1, separated from society. Wright continued to Blight met Judith Wright (and Val Vallis) at early Series A, No. 26. meetings of the Meanjin Group in Brisbane. ‘I that were not being valued. ‘I venture to predict,’ met Jack in 1944,’ Vallis recalled at the time of she wrote in 1951, ‘that in twenty years’ time Blight’s death. ‘By then he had already been someone will discover the works of F John Blight 12 UQ LIBRARY and there will be a big boom in them. Try to Left: Judith Wright in count up the number of people writing here with 1949. Papers of John any trace of a mind or originality of expression, Blight, UQFL70, Box and remember you’ve got both to a remarkable 19, Folder 3. degree.’ When the twenty years was almost Accompanying photos up, though, she admitted that not many truly of the sea by Mila appreciated Blight’s achievement: ‘If this were a Zincone. place where poems are valued as poems, how Mila works in high you’d stand’.11 She yoked him to herself in Multimedia Services at the UQ Library and only two poets of our own age in Queensland– spends her free time 12 arrogant, aren’t I?’ with her camera on Stradbroke Island. In the early years they spoke candidly of their Mila’s solo exhibition disillusionment with the literary scene. Wright had ‘Shadows and images of Italy, Holland books. Wright wrote one poem ‘For Jack Blight’, and Australia. Her as far as intelligence goes. Their praise is just as and knew and understood ‘the loneliness of the photographs have lacking in standards as their blame’.13 It is likely white page, the blank white page’ (from Blight’s appeared in several poem, ‘The poet’s page’). Blight dedicated publications. He increasingly voiced his own concerns about Wright: ‘My obligation is / to observe and not the literary scene: ‘The climate of the [Adelaide] chop out what / may have seemed a dead tree, Arts Festival from a writer’s point of view was dead to / all futures …’ The obligation of the poet, most unhealthy–parochial, political, mediocre Blight reminded his friend, was to remain open and poorly patronised by writers’.14 He was angry to new possibilities, despite the bareness of the that some people did not see a poet could be present view. deserving of government support through writing fellowships. ‘Australians don’t regard writers as Blight died in Brisbane in 1995. Judith Wright workers but some kind of lazy buggers and treat died in Canberra in 2000. them accordingly,’ he complained.15 STEPHANY STEGGALL was awarded a Master of Philosophy at UQ in 2001 for her thesis, isolated and neglected Romantic he did receive John Blight and community: an Australian poet A beachcomber’s diary corresponding and conversing in the community won the Myer Award in 1964 and the Dame of writers, the community of the natural world and Mary Gilmore Medal in 1965.

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