University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2011 Gathering points: Australian poetry: a natural selection Phillip Hall University of Wollongong Recommended Citation Hall, Phillip, Gathering points: Australian poetry: a natural selection, Doctor of Creative Arts thesis, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, 2011. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/3471 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact Manager Repository Services: [email protected]. gathering points: AUSTRALIAN POETRY: a natural selection Phillip Hall Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Doctor of Creative Arts degree of Wollongong University 2011 1 CONTENTS Section One: Introduction 6 A definition of ‘nature’ 9 Dwelling in nature 12 A definition of ‘nature poetry’ 14 The place of science in nature poetry 18 Romanticism and Australian nature poetry 21 Pastoral and Australian nature poetry 22 Ecocriticism and Australian nature poetry 24 Postcolonialism, place and Australian nature poetry 27 Gathering Points: Australian Poetry: A Natural Selection 30 Section Two: Australian Poetry: A Natural Selection 32 Australian nature poetry of praise 34 RF Brissenden, Les Murray, Robert Adamson and Judith Wright 34 Praise poetry of unlikely living things 38 Praise poetry of rural Australia 41 Praise poetry of nature in urban and suburban Australia 46 Praise poetry for the capacity of regeneration in nature 50 Robert Gray and Judith Beveridge 54 Australian nature poetry of dwelling 59 Postcolonialism and the Australian nature poetry of dwelling 59 Anti-pastoral and georgic in the Australian nature poetry of dwelling 64 Australian nature poetry of image 82 Judith Wright 82 Robert Adamson 84 Peter Minter 88 Dorothy Hewett 89 Grace Perry 93 Philip Hodgins 97 Terminal illness, death and bereavement 98 Pregnancy, childbirth and domestic life 102 Old age and family relationships 108 Romantic and sexual relationships 111 Conflict and warfare 116 2 The bush as the site of nightmare, accidental death and murder 119 The nature of language 121 Australian poetry: a natural selection 123 Section Three: Creative Project 125 Creation Reader 126 Common Wombat 127 Praise Creative Tension 129 Asian House Geckos 130 Hydromys Chrysogaster 131 The Creation 132 Pressure Points: Line Storms 133 Cicadas 133 Mozzies 133 Snakes 133 Fire Control 133 If Unmetered The Sun 133 These 7786 Species of Australian Flies 134 Sclerophyll Canopy 134 Barometric Readings 134 Sentry Duty 135 Willie 136 Galahs Rising 137 Gilly-wattler 138 Valley Time 139 At Wentworth Falls 140 Dwelling Palimpsest 143 Promised Land 144 In The Car Park Overlooking The Grave Of John Flynn, Alice Springs 145 Colonial Heads: i. Black Boy 146 ii. Cabbage Tree 147 iii. Burrawang Palm 148 iv. She Oak 149 v. Red Cedar 150 3 At Fitzroy Falls 151 Red Gold 152 Griffin’s Farm, Kangaroo Valley 153 Habitation 154 Save Behana Gorge 155 Suburban Bush-Thicknees 156 Cairns Esplanade 157 The Sixth Day (Image) Bridal Falls 159 Camping in Yarrunga Gorge, beyond the Fitzroy Falls 160 A Humble Fire 162 Red Ferrari 163 Sperm Wars 164 Waiting in Penrith South 165 There She Left Him, For Yahweh 166 For They Shall Be Comforted: i. Annunciation at the Dubbo Base Hospital 167 ii. Fucked 168 iii. Wind Chimes For A Winter Garden 169 iv. In The Upper Room 170 v. To Have And To Hold 171 vi. Dubbo Picnic Ground 172 vii. Freeze-Frame 173 viii. Dubbo Graveside 174 Weathered Contract 175 Raising The Colours: i. The Wet 176 ii. The Dry 177 iii. Amidst Sugarcane 178 The Outdoor Educator 179 Hiking with a school group in the Morton National Park 180 Toasting Marshmallows 181 Learning On The Line 182 Notes 186 Acknowledgements 188 Section Four: Poetics: A Field Guide 191 Ecology and Creativity 193 My nature poetry of praise 196 My nature poetry of dwelling 201 4 Poetry of dwelling, postcolonialism and anthropomorphism 203 My nature poetry of image (the sixth day) 209 Section Five: Conclusion 213 Bibliography 223 Poetical Works 223 Critical, Historical & Scientific Works: Books 232 Critical, Historical & Scientific Works: Web Sites 236 Critical, Historical & Scientific Works: Articles & Reviews 237 5 Section One: Introduction 6 As a child I lived in the Blue Mountains of NSW. My house stood a stone’s throw from the Great Western Highway and railway line: noise and bustle, the Indian Pacific, Mack trucks. From our front veranda I gazed up that highway, west, all the way to Perth, while outside our back fence was a gully. I mucked up, the artful dodger escaping jobs, turning to outside-the-back-gate. Once in my gully, I was an adventurer or an explorer, maybe even an escaped convict. At the head of the gully was a series of small rock pools surrounded by thick native bush and blackberry and filled with tadpoles, insect larvae and dragonflies. From the rock pools, the creek flowed a few hundred metres before reaching a small waterfall. At the base of this sandstone cliff line there was a cave hidden in the shady bottom of the gully. Here I kept a tarp, billy, matches and a knife. I never got permission to stay in my cave overnight, but from it such bravery was planned. If you struggled down the creek line for about an hour, over slippery and mossy rocks, you came to the Glenbrook Gorge. Here there was much more water: fish and yabbies, sometimes turtles. Big boys told stories of how the trees around these swimming holes were filled with snakes. Snakes so big that they swung from tree to tree and from one side of the gully to the other. But the truth is that in all the time I spent down there, snakes were a rare spotting: a death adder, a diamond python, a few red-bellied black snakes, that was all. I once saw a wallaby, sometimes echidnas and lyrebirds, lots of blue-tongues and kookaburras. But the bush for me was a place of solitary wanderings. I studied moss, lichens and fungus, carved sandstone, threw rocks, made spears and sucked the honey from Mountain Devils. Looking back on those childhood ramblings, I might wish that my joy had been less intrusive, but the wonder, the respect, did slowly tune in. Indeed, as an adult, I have chosen to make the bush, as it is found in the National Parks of South-Eastern Australia and Northern Queensland, the place of my professional life. I work as an outdoor educator, taking small groups of predominantly teenage participants into remote areas of the bush for up to a fortnight. All of my expeditions are based on a model of minimum- environmental-impact bushwalking in difficult and trackless terrain. The following, ‘The Outdoor Educator’, is a poem that I have written that attempts to encapsulate my approach to this type of experiential learning: River rising as cloud, sponged by the frosty night, the bush rustling, a sound of snoring across the over-hang’s dirt floor and the rolling, side-to-side, of sleeping-bags trapping warmth. Hewn from rock, with deeply creviced trunks, turpentines and ironbarks cover the fire-scarred 7 and sandy slopes and ridges. I listen to the group sleeping, the repeated oom of a frogmouth, the sound of water rapid over rock and beside our fire, now shimmering embers, wonder what little we really need. In the moonlight, flushed with winter’s dew, velvety white flannel flowers beside abandoned bloodied feathers. Still in my bag out of the chill air, I feel content. Tonight glimpsed through fog the Milky Way haloes our earth-bound endeavour. While many of us who work in Outdoor Education see it as very valuable experiential learning tool, the industry is often perceived to be a high-risk expensive activity struggling to maintain a position in an already over-crowded school curriculum. This has led to much research and writing by academics teaching Outdoor Education within university Education faculties, attempting to define what Outdoor Education is, its relationship to remote ‘wild places’, and to explain its value for participants. Within Australia the best introduction to this research is Outdoor And Experiential Learning: Views From The Top, edited by Tracey Dickson, Tonia Gray and Bruce Hayllar (2005). As an Outdoor Educator, I am always asking questions about budgets, risk and educational rationale. These questions are highlighted in all my expedition and program preparations. But as I talk with schools and parents, and even more importantly, as I develop a relationship with my expedition participants, other questions become equally important: • Why do we seek out remote ‘wild places’? • What are our ‘rights’, ‘privileges’ and ‘responsibilities’ in relationship to them? • What are ‘wild places’; what is ‘wilderness’; indeed, what is ‘nature’? The subject of my DCA is neither childhood memories of playing in the bush nor Outdoor Education. These are my starting points, but my subject is Australian Nature 8 Poetry. I have written a volume of nature poetry, titled creation reader, as Section Three of my thesis. Section Two is titled, ‘Australian Poetry: A Natural Selection’, and is my reading of Australian nature poetry, examining the context and sources of my work; it is a prequel to creation reader. Section Four is titled ‘Poetics: A Field Guide’ and is my statement of personal poetics, reflecting on my poetry it serves as a sequel to creation reader. I read and write nature poetry, at least in part, because of my life experiences. And just as the reflections on my personal and professional experiences lead me to revaluate my values and ideas about nature, so does my reading and writing of poetry: • Why do I read and write nature poetry? • What are the features – the strengths and weaknesses – of this type of writing? • Are the purposes and values of nature poetry the same as for other poetry? • And the big question, of course, what is ‘nature’? Is it only found in National Parks, in remote ‘wild places’, or also in rural areas and in urban/suburban spaces? These questions will form the basis of the remainder of my introduction and the next section of my thesis.