Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Preface
- Foreword By John Lucas
- Prologue
- To Tasmania with Mrs Meredith
- On the Right Side of the Earth
- We meet at last
- I've been wanting to ask …
- Dear Mr Simpson
- Taking things in
- A Bummer
- Swanport
- And for the Record
- Fax from Launceston to Michael
- A Hasty Rejoinder
- Something you can't deny
- The Interview
- In Mount Field National Park
- News of a Death
- On the Answering Machine
- In Flowerdale
- Hadn't we the Gaiety?
- About as far as we can go
- Your art Mrs Meredith
- The Princess Theatre, Launceston, 18th October, 1995
- Threads
- Journal entry for Tuesday, 31st Oct.
- Dangerous I know
- A Poem for Wybalenna Chapel
- Making an Exhibition
- A Last Glimpse
- Epilogue
- Melbourne Central Cemetery
- Select Bibliography
A Bummer
from On the Right Side of the Earth
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Preface
- Foreword By John Lucas
- Prologue
- To Tasmania with Mrs Meredith
- On the Right Side of the Earth
- We meet at last
- I've been wanting to ask …
- Dear Mr Simpson
- Taking things in
- A Bummer
- Swanport
- And for the Record
- Fax from Launceston to Michael
- A Hasty Rejoinder
- Something you can't deny
- The Interview
- In Mount Field National Park
- News of a Death
- On the Answering Machine
- In Flowerdale
- Hadn't we the Gaiety?
- About as far as we can go
- Your art Mrs Meredith
- The Princess Theatre, Launceston, 18th October, 1995
- Threads
- Journal entry for Tuesday, 31st Oct.
- Dangerous I know
- A Poem for Wybalenna Chapel
- Making an Exhibition
- A Last Glimpse
- Epilogue
- Melbourne Central Cemetery
- Select Bibliography
Summary
Only in Oz is Elgar called
a bloke! G'day, Sir Ed!
I'mtuned in to brightn-
breezy Classic FM
in Launceston — a Specialist,
says the visa, an amiable
grey-bearded British poet,
says the Press.
Below, the brown river
is sneaking in again,
repainting the crags of Cataract Gorge,
a dumpy tourist paddle-boat
like something off a roundabout,
is gaudily chugging past,
its p.a. barking There
above you to your right …
Launceston wasn't fun for you
in those willow-pattern days,
trundling in in that knocked-up carriage
with your old servant Godbold
decked out in his suit of velveteen,
tall black shiny hat, shot belt, gun.
And what a fog! You imagined a huge
cauldron of steam. And, as always,
perky with opinion,
you ventured the siting of the town
an unaccountable blunder. Despite masts
tangling prettily above the wharf,
handsome church at every turn,
river and well-stored shops,
you winced at the squalor, filth,
as if sensing the end of flitting
might insist on this. Clutching faith
in the sunnier side of things,
you left in a pelting thunderstorm.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cutting the Clouds Towards , pp. 31 - 32Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1999