not too much

In a long bleat in The Australian "Pulping our poetry" (07 Jul 07) Rosemary Neil laments big publisher's lack of interest in Australian poetry. She cites a study by University of Queensland Press poetry editor, Bronwyn Lea, who notes a fall of more than 40 per cent in the number of poetry books being published. Lea's study finds that "in the years between 1993 and 1996, more than 250 books of poems were published in Australia each year. By 2006, this figure had been reduced by about 100 titles." Today, Lea says, the vast majority of local poetry titles come from small, independent presses. Some "punch above their weight", winning prestigious literary prizes or attracting big names. According to Lea, however, many independent poetry presses "do not have sufficient access to resources, distribution and marketing to have their books noticed by readers. Under these conditions, the thus far unchallenged maxim that 'poetry doesn't sell' becomes self-fulfilling."

Lea, a poet and academic, believes UQP is the only large, mainstream publisher that still maintains a formal poetry list. UQP publishes five or six poetry titles a year and has on its list eminent poets such as John Tranter and David Malouf. Malouf's first poetry collection in 26 years, Typewriter Music, was released in hardback at the Sydney Writers' Festival last month. Within three days, its print run of 3000 had all but sold out. Lea says this shows that -- contrary to popular belief -- if poetry is properly marketed, it will connect with readers. Her study, published in the new UQP title, Making Books, retraces how "the 1990s heralded a new ethos in Australian book publishing: poetry was no longer presumed to be a prestigious staple on the list of a serious publishing house.

Neil asks, "While we like to profess reverence for dead poets from Shakespeare to Paterson, could it be that readers have little time for living poets?"

For many months now, I have been reading a lot of Australian contemporary poetry, trying to acquaint myself with it and trying to get up to date. Some times, rarely, I find a poem that speaks brilliantly. I am well educated and well read, yet more often than not, I find myself irritated by contemporary poetry as it is literally meaningless -- that is, the words fail to convey any meaning or image to to me as reader; they are simply . . . words.

If poets cannot write poetry that has meaning to the reader (or listener) they will remain unpublished or their publications will be pulped, and deservedly so. If it's good enough, it will sell.

Even apparently good poetry can be obscure. Newcastle Region Art Gallery has had an exhibition/webpages of poems by Australian poets responding to paintings in its collection. Some of these make sense to me, some don't. In this example, distinguished poet Les Murray responds with his poem Definitions to Dale Hickey's Painting 1968. It's a fine poem. Yet it is only because I happen to know a small amount about the Household Division that I could catch a relationship between the painting and the poem. It's all very well for poetry to mean something to the writer, but it must have meaning to the the reader. Here Murray, at least, succeeds. Too many poems tragically have no meaning for anyone.

Definitions Effete: a pose of Palace cavalry officers in plum Crimean fig, spurs and pointed boots, not at all the stamp of tight-buttoned Guards executing arm-geometry in the shouting yards, but sitting his vehicle listening to tanks change gears amid oncoming fusiliers one murmurs the style that has carried his cohort to this day, and now will test them: You have to kill them, Giles, you can't arrest them. --Les Murray The distinctive red tunic is worn by all regiments of the footguards. They are distinguished by the buttons on the tunic, and the plumes in the bearskins -- Grenadier Guards: single buttons, white plume; Coldstream Guards: buttons in pairs, red plume; Scots Guards: buttons in threes, no plume; Welsh Guards: buttons in fours, white and green plume; Irish Guards: buttons in fives, blue plume.