Abraham Leeman- Castaway
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ESTERLY stories poems articles reviews Poets of the W.A. Goldfields Recent Experiments in Verse and Prose Abraham Leeman Castaway a quarterly review price two dollars registered at gpo perth for transmission by post as a periodical category B WESTERLY a quarterly review EDITORS: Bruce Bennett and Peter Cowan EDITORIAL ADVISORS: Patrick Hutchings, Leonard Jolley, Margot Luke, Fay Zwicky Westerly is published quarterly by the English Department, University of Western Australia, with assistance from the Literature Board of the Australia Council and the Western Australian Literary Fund. The opinions expressed in Westerly are those of individual contributors and not of the Editors or Editorial Advisors. Correspondence should be addressed to the Editors, Westerly, Department of English, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia 6009 (telephone 803838). Unsolicited manuscripts not accompanied by a stamped self-addressed envelope will not be returned. All manuscripts must show the name and address of the sender and should be typed (double-spaced) on one side of the paper only. Whilst every care is taken of manuscripts, the editors can take no final responsibility for their return; contributors are consequently urged to retain copies of all work submitted. Minimum rates for contributions-poems $7.00; prose pieces $7.00; reviews, articles, $15.00; short stories $30.00. It is stressed that these are minimum rates, based on the fact that very brief contributions in any field are acceptable. In practice the editors aim to pay more, and will discuss payment where required. Recommended sale price: $2.00 per copy. Subscriptions: $8.00 per annum (posted); $15.00 for 2 years (posted). Special student subscription rate: $7.00 per annum (posted). Single copies mailed: $2.40. Subscriptions should be made payable to Westerly, and sent to The Bursar, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia 6009. Synopses of literary articles published in Westerly appear regularly in Abstracts of English Studies (published by the American National Council of Teachers of English). A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS To begin with the bright news, the recent Southeast Asian issue (Westerly 4, December 1976) virtually sold out on pUblication. We were unable to supply orders to satisfy many readers in Southeast Asian countries. Because of the issue's popularity and its value to those with an interest in the region, we are investigating the possibility of a reprint. On a less bright note, we have to inform readers that the Western Australian Arts Council has exercised its option to discontinue its subsidy towards the arts insert, 'Westview'. We regret also the necessity to increase the price of Westerly to two dollars per issue. The decision has been forced on us by escalating paper and printing costs. As we announced in the last issue, the Patricia Hackett Prize for 1975-6 was awarded jointly to Graeme Wilson, for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poems, and Graeme Kinross Smith, for his profiles of Australian writers Joseph Furphy, Kylie Tennant and T. A. G. Hungerford. The prizewinners' work has enhanced Westerly in the past two years. We congratulate them both--Graeme Wilson in Hong Kong and Graeme Kinross Smith in Melbourne. We look forward to continuing interest and support from our readers in Aus tralia and overseas in 1977. If you are a casual reader of this magazine, we urge you to take out an annual subscription-and urge your friends to do so too. This is the best way to ensure its future. WESTERLY No.1, March, 1977 CONTENTS Editorial Note 2 PROSE Once it was Frog Hunting 5 RICHARD CAREY The Light of the Shadow 9 JEFF MAYNARD Conversation Without Inverted Commas 11 FINOLA MOORHEAD An Exhibition 17 KRIS HEMENSLEY Tutorial 23 JULIE LEWIS POEMS STEPHEN GILFEDDER 8 WENDY JENKINS 62 JOHN M. WRIGHT 10 BARRY MITCALFE 64 CAROL COHN 13 SHANE MCCAULEY 84 JOHN BLIGHT 14 COLLEEN BURKE 86 LEE KNOWLES 16 ANDREW LANSDOWN 96 W. GREEN 20 ROBERT C. BOYCE 97 R. A. FORSYTH 21 LARRY BUTrROSE 98 DERRY PARKER 22 CAROLINE M. CADDY 99 IAN TEMPLEMAN 26 DAVID FITZPATRICK 100 MARK MACLEOD 28 SUSAN MCGOWAN 100 SUSAN HAMPTON 31 VIV KITSON 101 PETER HARNEY 33 ADRIAN FLAVELL 101 ANTIGONE KEFALA 61 GUY WELLER 110 ARTICLES Abraham Leeman-Castaway 35 PHILIP TYLER & KEITH ROSS Bards of the Backblocks 65 BEVERLEY SMITH Symbol, Fragment Sequence- ANew Kind of Australian Poem 87 NOEL MACAINSH BOOKS Robert Drew, The Savage Crows 102 VERONICA BRADY Edwin Thumboo (ed.), The Second Tongue 104 KIRPAL SINGH R. A. Forsyth, The Lost Pattern 106 ALAN DILNOT G. S. Reid (ed.), The Western Australian Elections 1974 108 GEOFF GALLOP Notes on Contributors 111 Cover: Detail from 'View of the Batavia' by A. D. Willaerts (1649). See page 38 RICHARD CAREY Once it was Frog Hunting It came on a wave of nausea, in the dark, after so many years, the scene so unexpected yet so vivid, like footage from an old movie spliced into a current attraction. After six hours of sick and troubled sleep, after the shouting and crying when he himself went to bed, he woke and saw it again ... the small boy, with a khaki knapsack carrying the jars for the frogs, knocking on the dark door, and Mr Shaw there in his brown dressing gown, and his eyes red, and Mrs Shaw behind him. "Urn ..... " Bob said, almost as if he had forgotten what he had come for. "When is Barry coming home?" Mr Shaw shook his head and said kindly, "Barry won't be coming home." "Oh!" Bob turned away quickly. "Oh!" David Sanderson could not have thought of putting it like that. Nothing more needed saying, and they hadn't even said the word. He saw Mr Shaw watch Bob walking away. Mr Shaw watched in case Bob should turn around and need something. Then he slowly closed the door. Bob loved Barry and the Shaws. They were a second family to him-his only family in a way, since he had no brothers and sisters. Sometimes he stayed the night with them. The small house closed up. David looked at his friend and at the drawn blinds, the closed door. Little Barry Shaw was dead and Bob was not crying. From when one of the kids came running over to where they were playing football out of season and told them, David had turned away from his own feelings. He had been afraid that he would have to tell the grown-ups how sorry he was, and he knew he would never be able to make it sound true. So he was relieved that it was all over now. He had known all along that Barry Shaw would be dead. You don't go under the wheels of a tram and live. And anyway they had heard it on the seven o'clock news after tea. It said Barry Shaw was admitted to St Vincent's in a critical condition. "Critical, do you hear?" his father said, turning on him. "Critical means dying. Now you know why we don't let you go out on the streets selling newspapers!" "All right, all right!" David Sanderson whined with embarrassment because this was the first time he had known a kid who was going to die. "I wasn't selling papers. I wasn't even there!" He went close to getting a clip on the ear because his father thought he was answering back. "What'll we do?" he asked as Bob closed the gate. WESTERLY, No.1, MARCH, 1977 5 "Let's go to the butts just the same." Lying sick on his bed, he remembered that they'd had to hurry to catch the seven thirty· five bus because the one after that was not for another hour. They walked quickly along Reid Street, under the huge, leafy plane trees. They did not speak. The early morning damp gave the air a fresh taste and a shine to the dark pavement and the smooth trunks of the old trees. The street was wide and the compressed houses did not live up to it or the magnificence of the trees. That much was vivid visual image to David Sanderson, the event projected forward. The whole thing happened again for him as he lay groggily on top of the blankets feeling the pain in his head and the nausea that filled him from his chest to his belly. What happened for a time after that was a memory, not a picture. Sanderson knew that they had caught the little red Port Melbourne bus. They had gone all the way to the terminus at Princes Pier. Then they had walked to the butts. This was a sandy waste land which had once been used as a rifle range. The wooden target supports were stilI there, backed against a high ridge. But they were sinking in the sand, and the whole place was a sort of disused rubbish tip, or perhaps just an uncared-for place that everyone used as a dumping ground. The white sand held many pools and was littered with old iron, boxes, cartons, rags and bags. Frogs made their homes under the rubbish. Sanderson knew that he and Bob Clutterbuck must have worked with their usual zeal, lifting the tins and bits of wood and tearing away the rotting cartons, and pouncing before the frogs could move. Yes, the picture was there. The shining brown little frog, nestled in its cosy place, hunched down like a miniature tortoise with its legs drawn in, and then the faint shuffle ended abruptly by the boy's hand. His own hand. He had been so quick and delicate.