Chapters (14)
No, don’t come. Of course I’m alright. I’m just under a period of probation—you know what I mean. Jo has locked the liquor cabinet (a move I suspect you approve), which I’m sure is all very responsible. I concur with you entirely: if I had not had anything to drink, I would have kept my temper. But you really don’t have to worry. Owen is at Ornella’s tonight and tomorrow with the Parishes. For my part, I’m just very tired and am sleeping a lot and thinking about my poems. Will write to you properly again very soon and love you and everything else. And thank you for reserving judgement of me, yet again.
Veda x
PS. No, of course I don’t want money to pay for the prints.
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7 JUNE 1967
Dear Tilde,
‘A distinctive Australian poetry,’ says my silly little Scots editor at Vellum, ‘needs, at its heart, an engagement with the particularities of Australia.’
I do not know how to make sense of this comment. Is it a statement, an exhortation, a criticism? How would you take it? Is my life not rich with ‘particularities’ and is it not ‘Australian’? Next time, I am going to send into the world some of my absurdist nonsense:
I am not a Nationalist
Nor Poltergeist
Nor Pugilist
Nor bloody weekend Cubilist …
So spare the bloody Bugle-ist
The critique I receive is such abominable nonsense that I may as well meet it in kind.
Now my publisher is telling me they’d like me to build up more of a ‘publishing history’ before they ‘collect’ my poems—they need to be able to quote all the journals my work has been printed in, so that my collection is verified by the world at large. John Honey, the chief editor, says to be patient: they are ‘building me’. But he’s not editing the poems himself—I wish he was because I rather like him, but instead he’s put this vicious little Scotsman onto me, who’s got the secateurs onto all my poems, trimmed everything which implies ‘female’ to the reader. (There was one verse in which the word ‘bosoms’ rose up, but it has been cut down like a scandalous pair of knickers on the line. ‘Bosoms’ might only ever be discussed in the context of sisterly friendships. ‘Bosoms, Brassieres, and Bunyips’—there’s a particularised engagement with Australia for you, sister!)
The days are gone when a poet had the ear of a king. Not anymore. Nope. (How’s that for an Americanism? Haven’t you heard the kids saying it? “Nope. Nope. Nope.” Whitman is over: there’s only one Walt now.)
Hark! I hear a key in a door! A scratching of husbands and small children. Quick, hide these painful scribblings. What will the neighbours think?
G’bye g’bye g’bye, darling Tilde, till next time.
VEDA xxxxx
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