From John Tranter

Dear Editor,

You may not be aware of it – indeed, the readers of ABR have hardly ever been made aware of it, for some reason – but over the last twenty years John Tranter has published the following books:

Dazed in the Ladies Lounge, Island Press, Sydney, 1979
Selected Poems, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1982
Under Berlin, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1988, winner of the NSW State Poetry Prize and the Grace Leven Prize.
The Floor of Heaven, Collins/Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1992
At The Florida, UQP, St Lucia, 1993, winner of the Age book of the year award, poetry.

As well as the following anthologies, as editor:

The New Australian Poetry, Makar Press, St Lucia, 1979, reprinted 1980
The Tin Wash Dish – Poems from Today’s Australians, (selected by John Tranter from entries in the poetry section of the ABC/ABA Literary Awards competition held in 1988), ABC Enterprises, Crow’s Nest, 1989
The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry (co-edited with Philip Mead), Penguin Australia, Ringwood, 1992, (second printing Dec. 1995 also published as the Bloodaxe Book of Modern Australian Poetry in the UK and the USA)

I’ve had twenty years to get used to being ignored by ABR and various other Melbourne magazines, and I thought I was inured to the process. But I now have to admit I was fooling myself. I have to admit I was disturbed to note in your twentieth-anniversary issue Quadrant reviewer Noel Macainsh’s unreadably dull piece on various conservative poets, including Les Murray, now the literary editor of that magazine. I was interested to note that Les got another review as well. Apparently one wasn’t enough to do justice to his importance on the literary scene. And Tranter? Not worth a paragraph.

That makes it ... let’s see ... Macainsh 1, Murray 2, Tranter 0
As Sam Goldwyn said, include me out.

John Tranter, Balmain, NSW

From Donald Horne

Dear Editor,

I assume you republished Andrew Riemer’s canning of The Coming Republic because it is such an historical curiosity – containing, as it does, what may have been the silliest sentence ever to have been printed in Australian Book Review, viz: ‘[George] Washington and his colleagues did not have to remake their society to the extent that Australia will have to be remade when the last, now illusory, link with Britain is severed’.

What he is referring to is the couple of decades in American history which marked the greatest, most concentrated, most comprehensive, and most influential period of institution-making in the whole record of the making of institutions, done in a manner that released the hopes and verve of ordinary people in a way that may never have previously happened, anywhere.

Donald Horne, Woollahra, NSW

From Miriel Lenore

Dear Editor,

It must be rare for a review of a poetry collection to focus on only one poem as Shirley Walker did in her review of Ken Bolton’s Untimely Meditations and Other Poems (ABR, April 1998), even when it is a long tide poem. I hope that readers are not deterred from a volume containing much to delight, much to challenge. By the way, Bolton doesn’t think wet feminists etc. rule the world – he suggests Les Murray and P.P. McGuiness think so.

Though not always agreeing, I do enjoy reading a poet who mocks the heroic, the pretentious and The Poetic, who counts Adrienne Rich among his influences (though lower no doubt than O’Hara, Schuyler. and Ted Berrigan!) and who, as poet and publisher, is generous to and supportive of contemporary women poets.

Miriel Lenore, Marden, SA

From Duncan Richardson

Dear Editor,

Your preference for writing that sets a context allows for readers who see reviews as information sources on subjects beyond the particular book, which is obviously valid and important. However, I have noticed that in ABR and elsewhere some reviewers often overdo this and launch into mini lectures on issues that are basically literary history on politics, background knowledge for the reviewer but irrelevant to the potential book buyer. Summaries of publishing history or factional feuds fit into this category.

Such padding is useful to the lazy reviewer who can disguise a lack of real engagement with the book in question by trotting out this waffle, often compounded by a verbal throwing up of hands and bemoaning the lack of available space.

In an interview in another publication, you mentioned using the ‘Shorts’ section to try out and introduce new reviewers. Looking back over the last year’s issues, I find the ‘Shorts’ writers have mostly been listed as ‘Melbourne reviewers’. While the rest of ABR’s content reflects the whole country to a fair extent, why not open the gates a bit more in this section for people beyond the Yarra.

Duncan Richardson

Ed’s reply: Reviewers in the Shorts section are encouraged to choose from a pile of books – a practice which is obviously unsuited to interstate reviewers. However, I take your point.