JINDYWOROBAK * ' 3 Harcourt Road, Rugby, S.A
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JINDYWOROBAK * ' 3 Harcourt Road, Rugby, S.A. f , 18 Mulgarra Street, Northbridge, N.S.W. d4 . Box 293 B, G.P.O., Melbourpe, C.I. , Towards an Australian Culture General Editor: REX INGAMELbS. Editor in N.S.W.: William Hart-Smith. Editor in Victori~:Kenneth H. GiBord. KENNETH H. CIFFORD. Author of "The Reluctant Lover." Editor of "Selected Poems of Charles IHarpur." Jindyworoba_k .Publications (VICTORIAN ' OFFICE) No. 1 )~rltl~worolmkwas registered in the name of Rex Ingalnells in 1939, and J 110 person or pcrsons nay usc its name in any form of business except by MELBOLIRNE: ,qrrcrncnt w~thhim in fu~thernnccof the c~dturelpurpose of Jindyworobilk. JINDYWOROBAK Towards Culture INTRODUCTION. I. TRAVAIL OF THE PRE-CULTURE. The Jindyworobak Club is probably the most important "The racketing rush of trams literary movenlent in Australia to-day. Though its members in George Street on wet nights, are mainly practising poets and versifiers, its challenge to a the hooting horns of motor cars better understanding of the Australian environment is a chal- and the lurid neon lights- lenge to all Australians to create a living and unique Australia. the clattering pandemonium The Jindyworobaks have shouldered the burden of asserting of Sydney haunts the brain Australia~lcultural values, and their seclrch has therefore been when a man sits where the world is bare for the distinctively Australian. The casual reader may suspect of all but the bush and rain. that in the emphasis of the Australian lies the seeds of dis- ruption, and that what the jindyworobaks will achieve is the The stars in the sky are dead, breaking off of Australia from the British Empire. But straight- the moon in the clouds is dark; thinking people will realise that these writers are standing for but now the trams go clanging down something that means not a breaking but a re-examining of the to the city by Hyde Park, ties that have linked Ai~stralianculture to the English cultural and hundreds are sick with glamour where heritage that is ours. It is the belief of the Jindyworobak the night-lights glitter far- that a true virile Australian culture can be achieved for us in places as slick as the names that stick. only by the jo~lli~lgof the distinctively Australian to the best Top Hat and the Ginger Jar. of our English cultural heritage. But once on a night alone, the rest of Sydney gay, KENNETH H. GIFFORD. I watched mad moonlight revel on red roofs at Double Bay; and more than another thing in life I wished to plunge again in a quiet where the world was bare of all but the bush and rain." Those lines written by Rex Ingn~~lellsare truly represen- tative of the spirit that underlies and seemingly has always been the dominant undercurrent in the stream of Australian ~x~try.'I'lik. Au~lri~li,l~lpoet i~lnloslil~v;irinbl~ writes in the The real tcst of a people's culture is the way in which town and of thc bush. l'herc is ;in ~nescapables'ense of con- they express thenlselves in relation to their environmcnt. and the loftiness and universality of their artistic conceptions raised tri~stbctween two c.ultures, and the poet ill choosing thQ t ol tl~ehush has choscn that which alone is capable of developpg on that basis. Australians have not yet reacted to their back- into the true national culture we must have before we may lay ground; in the main, they have not even truly sensed its exis- claims to nationhood. The conflict between the city and the tence. There arc still too many oaks and poplars hiding the bush is a conflict between an alien and an Australian culture. gums, too many blackberries infesting the countryside for the Nodding Blue Lily to make its shy presence known. If we Australia has produced many verse-makers. Their works are to achieve an Australian culture we must sacrifice much to have ranged from the almost-jingoism of Paterson to the sing- which we have been accustonled in the past, and in its place ing cadences of Shaw Neilson, the "Great Lover" of Australian we must find an even older past, a past that is truly Australian. poetry. Thcir subjects have ranged from the stirring struggle An Australian culture depends, to quote Mr. Ingamells, "on of the pioneers to the quieting sound of billabongs at night. the fulfilment and sublimation of certain definite conditions. And they have produced their schools, their literary move- namely: ments in abundance. They have risen flaming in the heat of noon-day, and, without exception, they have faded with the 1. A clear recognition of environmental values; greying oE the sunset at night-fall. For a11 the burning of 2. The debunking of much nonsense; their flames they have left but little mark; here and there a scar 3. An understanding of Australia's history and traditions. to show where they have rested awhile, and then even that is primaeval, colonial. and modern." gone. These arc the grass-fires of literature: perhaps they even Each of these conditions will demand consideration as achieve a little cleansing, but they never attain the majesty our theme develops, but the first and by far the most impor- of the irresistibly powerful blaze that sweeps relentlessly. tant must be given considerable attention. It is basic to the leaving its mark for generations to come. The Jindyworobak whole conception of an Australian culture; it contains thc Club is the first great bushfire in Australian literature. Before germ of life from which alone an Australian culture can de- its blaze tangled undergrowth and foreign-cultured trees alike velop. If we are to be honest, we cannot speak of an Aus. collapse; along its pathway the ground is prepared for the fer- tralian dawn as did Evans in his poem On the Plain: tile literatim that must follow. "Half-lost in film of faintest lawn, " Jindyworobak" is an aboriginal work meaning "to annex", A single star in armour white "to joirl". 7'0 thosc who are striving towards an Australian Upon the dreaming heights of dawn ci~ltureit has come to mean something- more; it has come, as Guards the dim frontiers of the night. we shall see presently. to represent sn annexing of all that Till plumed ray is heautifi~land true in the Australia11 background, and the And golden spray joinlng to it oi all that is good and applicable in our English Have washed its trembling light away. cultural hcr~tage. It has come to be above all the Charter of Australial~culture, the right of Australia to be Australia and The sun has peeped above the blue; of Australians to be Australians. The Jindyworobaks are, as His level lances as they pass Ingamells has described them, "those individuals who are en- Have shot the dew-drops thro' and thro', deavouring to free Australian art from whatever alien influ- And dashed with rubies all the grass, ences trarnnlel it, that is, to bring it into proper contact with And silver sound its material." And art, here, I believe, includes any true ex- Of horse-bells round pression' of the creative spirit. Floats softly o'er the jewelled ground." Observe the epithets that the poet chooses: a "film of faintest direct thought-contact with Nature. Although emotionally lawn", a star "in arniour wltite", thc "level Ianc~s"of the sun. and spiritually they should be, and, I believe, are more 'There we have the English tradition at its height, with the attuned to the distinctive bush, hill and coastal places breath of mediaevalism still clingillg to the hardly- they visit than to the parks and gardens around the changing scene. Perhaps those lines are a perfect pictl~zof. cities, their thought-idiom belongs to the latter not to the say, Sherwood Forest with its quiet covering of leaves: I do former." not know. But I do know that they achieve nothing more than the casting of a filming veil when applied to the Ai~stralinn This pseudo-Europeanism is iio cloak behind which 0111 countryside; the Australian bush is rugged and virile, the great writers seek 10 shelter: it is a tower of destruction threatening plains in the morning are crisping, firm. And the A~!stralian 10 crash upon our glimmering nationhood, to crl~shit in its in- author, be he painter, novelist or poet, must recognise this cipicrir stnlgglcs, and to doom 11s to unthinking s~rbservience. fact. To quote Mr. Inganiells again, "any genuine culture Take, for example, the outlook on the Australian scene that that might develop in Australia, however it might be refreshed formed the background of the literary criticism of Professor and inspired by English influences, would have ta represent Cowling. Here are his words as they appeared ~n the Mel- the birth of a new soul. Its quintessence must lie in the bourne Age on February 16th, 1935: realisation of whatever things are distinctive in our environ- "Australia is not yet in the centre of the rnnp and has ment and their sublimation in art and idea, in culture." Twenty no London. There are no ancient churches, castles, ruins years before Jilidyworobak, Wilson touched on the very nervc- -the memorials of generations departed. From the point centre of our still-born culture, and sensed for a moment thc of view of literature this means that we can never hope aching void that lies at the heart of our literature: ro have a Scott. a Balzac, a Dumas." "We should glve the local saints a chancc to play thc local game, The same theory applied to poetry begets such lines as: Not import them from outside because they've got LIII "The cattle-tracks between the trees old brand ~~ame." Were like long dusky aisles." Australia has suffered too much from her foleign tics; her Gumtrees can no more be twisted into a resemblance, however culture has been developed in their cloaking mass, her individu- fanciful, to the oak-pressed lines of Gothic architecture than ality has been choked in their hopeless maze.