[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday?

The idea…

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Poetry Foundation, and so Poetry magazine by extension or implication depending on which is now considered the over company, has a beef with Judith Wright. To be fair, they positively reviewed her collection, Birds, in the December 1964 issue, writing that “The form is conventional, the tone often that of a skillful, rhyming bird-lover. But the observation is acute and uncompromising and there is sometimes a surprising vigor in the transmission.” It’s praise as contrast to what is not said, but praise. And then, nothing.

Wright is among the more celebrated poets in Australia. If you’re just breaking into the Australian literary scene you’d be lucky to be considered for the Judith Wright Poetry Award for New and Emerging Poets. Got a new book out? There’s the Judith Wright Award for poetry collection by Australians. Alternately, your book or “poem of substantial length,” says Wikipedia, may qualify for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award, given each year at the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. I’ve found descriptions and pictures of monuments praising her work for indigenous people, the extent and form of which I’m ignorant but it’s at least cleared the start-small-construction bar of worthiness. She worked to save the Great Barrier Reef in addition to playing a part in other environmental efforts. According to Wikipedia, “With some of her friends, she helped found one of the earliest nature conservation movements,” which is vague enough to conjure all manner of questions I’ll not need answered for the moment if ever but I’m sure you can read all about it at the Judith Wright Arts Centre in the Fortitude Valley suburb of Brisbane. She’s kind of a big deal.