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Adam Aitken and Robert Adamson

Dear Editor,

David Mason, in his review of the anthology The Language in My Tongue (ABR, August 2022), writes: ‘I feel a bit unfair picking on Adam Aitken, whose poems open the book by virtue of alphabetical order, but his lines too often forgo the poet’s brief in favour of triviality: “Reaching forty now I ask: Why did Mum / never sew the hems of my jeans, even if Death on the TV / reminded her of her children?”’

Perhaps Mason is unaware that, in these lines, Adam Aitken is referencing Robert Adamson’s famous and not-trivial poem ‘My House’, from Where I Come From (1979). Far from being trivial and a forgoing of the poet’s brief, these lines are an intertextual play with a well-known poem by a Hawkesbury/Sydney poet, and appear not to have been understood by the reviewer, giving a false impression of Aitken’s ‘The Fire Watchers: A memoir (in the Sydney Style)’.

Tracy Ryan, Toodyay, WA

The Amateurs

Dear Editor,

One thing that struck me about The Amateurs (reviewed by Tim Byrne in ABR Arts, July 2022) was its playing, first, of humans’ relatively long trip into the modern, and then the relatively short trip into post-modernism with the arrival of Brian Lipson’s character, the person of the now. The lived, present feeling in the theatre of our togetherness and inter-reliance was strong and powerful, in the way or parallel to the way the Noah and the Ark story presents itself.

Jim Dal (online comment)

Il Trovatore

Dear Editor,

Ah, a refreshing review. I loathed this production (attended on the same day) and was tempted to walk out on numerous occasions. The whole thing was a disgrace; the singing shocking; the sets hideous.

Naim Kassar (online comment)

‘Natural Wonder’

Dear Editor,

I like the quandary of the time travelling young wonderer who may well want to go back and fix up fate differently with his mother, or is that just the grandmother’s take on his question. A lovely impressionist collection of telling and slightly blurred details; harbour, shark beach, boats adrift, and needing their anchors cut free, evaporation.

Stephen Kimber (online comment)