The Poems of Gordon.
| The N.S.W. Bookstall Co. has published a cheap
| edition of Gordon's Poems (price 1/6), prefaced with
| an outline of the life of the author. Adam Lindsay
| Gordon, like Victor J. Daley, was not himself
| Australian born. He came from the Canary Islands,
| although, of course, of British extraction. Notable,
| is it not, that two men who did so much for the
| cultivation of the Australian sentiment should have
| been ineligible for membership of the A.N.A. And
| strange, is it not (by the way) that most A.N.A.-ers
| these days are red-mad Jingo imperialists. Which only
| goes to show that quite a lot of good Australians are
| born outside of Australia, and on the other hand, no
| end of "pommies" are born inside Australia. To point
| the moral further, a man's a man and a thing's a
| thing the world over.
| No Leisured Class.
| -/mdash> and that less their best -
| had they been obliged to work for their livings.
| Alleged Propaganda
| Another atrocious heresy has lately found its way
| into print. Our Sabbath contemporary, commenting upon
| the recently issued
| "Oxford Book of Australasian Verse"
| (8/6 nett) complains that Bernard O'Dowd has been far
| too generously treated, because his work is not
| poetry, but propaganda. This ingenious objection
| will, if logically extended, almost completely
| abolish the claim of the Bible to be regarded as one,
| at least, of the world's greatest literary treasures.
| The Book of Job, the Psalms, the Gospel of John, are
| not poetry, but propaganda! Ecclesiastes is not
| literature, but propaganda! To go further, Paradise
| Lost is not a poem, but a tract, and Areopagitica a
| mere red-rag leaflet; Bobbie Burns was but a metrical
| stump orator, and Shelley a rhyming I.W.W. agitator.
| Kipling's aspirations to a niche in the Poets' Corner
| are dashed for ever - he is but an
| imperialistic propagandist; and - but
| there, enough said. The sore point is that the O'Dowd
| propaganda is of the big-endian variety, whereas the
| Sabbath critic is a confirmed little-endian
| - a very little one.
| Poetry that isn't propaganda, literature that
| falls short of its highest mission, prophecy, has but
| little right to existence in a world full of wrongs
| to be righted. Sing of the sword, of the torch, of
| the banner red, thou poet prophets of revolt! While
| tyranny stalks abroad, and wan Proletaria starves and
| rots, your incense and perfume is a mockery to
| God.
|
|
| An Example of Note.
| Fred Sinclaire, Melbourne's fighting parson
| - fighting in the spiritual sense, not
| on the pugilistic field - possesses
| perhaps the strongest individuality in Australia. He
| is too hot for any 'respectable' pulpit to hold, but
| his unorthodox Sunday services are worth attending.
| In personal appearance he looks his part
| - a veritable Apollo. Whenever Labor is
| fighting for its very existence, the tongue and pen
| of Fred Sinclaire, you may depend, is not idle. Here
| is a sample of the deadly parallel he serves up hot
| each month in his little paper,
|
| "Fellowship."
|
|
| Of course, this isn't literature -
| it's propaganda. That's just what hurts!
The
| Pepertory Movement.
| The literary and sociological drama movement,
| which for many years past has maintained a healthy
| stir in Melbourne's thinking circles, finds the
| present movement to be one of heart-searchings. The
| old Repertory Theatre has practically abandoned the
| field, but the younger brother - the
| Socialist Repertory Theatre - is
| managing to put in an occasional well-directed kick,
| despite Censors and other medieval survivals. In
| addition a new movement, known as the Australian
| National Theatre, has been launched, and by way of a
| trial trip staged
| "Just Mum," an original Australian
| play, a couple of weeks back. The moving spirit of
| the new venture is Mrs. Davidson, who has long been
| associated with the literary drama movement, and her
| right hand man - or, rather right hand
| woman ~~ is Miss Agnes St. Claire, a talented English
| actress who took the title role in
|
| "Just Mum."
| As a sort of extension to the theatre itself, a
| Theatre League has been formed. Its objects are to
| discover hidden dramatic talent, to educate the
| tastes of its members and the general public in the
| literary drama, and to encourage the production of
| un-commercial drama. A similar work has long been
| performed by Fred Sinclaire, whose fortnightly
| play-readings are amongst the greatest literary treats
| that Melbourne affords.
| Meanwhile Perth rubs along with no un-commercial
| drama and very little, and that little mostly poor,
| of the commercial variety. The only hopeful sign on
| the immediate horizon is the fact that the Fremantle
| Labor Sunday School is preparing to stage a Socialist
| "Mortality Play," entitled
|
| "Every Child." The play is an
| original one, and its paternity is attributed to Ben
| Jones. But of this more anon.
|
"Digger
| Smith."
| C. J. Dennis has gone and done another book. If it
| has anything like the success - and it
| should - of his earlier publications,
| then Dennis will surely have won out as the
| Australian author with the greatest reading
| clientele. We know this has been claimed on behalf of
| Nat Gould.
| But Gould is not an Australian anyhow, and in any
| case for our reputation's sake we cannot allow the
| classics of
"The
| Magpie Jacket" to speak against, say,
| "The Sentimental
| Bloke." However, Messrs. Angus and Robertson
| have taken the bull by the horns and told us chapter
| and verse just what have been the sales effected in
| connection with a few of Mr. Dennis's books.
| "The Sentimental
| Bloke" appeared in October, 1915, and beat
| all Australian records within twelve months, the
| sales during that period reaching 56,000 copies.
| Since then the total sale has increased to 82,000.
| "Ginger
| Mick" was published in 1916, and over 52,000
| copies have been sold.
| "The Glugs of Gosh" was published in
| 1917 and 23,000 copies have been sold. The three
| volumes named above were very well received in
| England, and a cable just to hand states that the
| first English edition of
| "The Glugs of Gosh" sold out within a
| fortnight. A sequel to
| "The Sentimental Bloke" entitled
| "Doreen"
| was also published in 1917, and was so well received
| that several editions, totalling over 55,000 copies,
| were sold very quickly. Of
|
| "Backblock Ballads and Later
| Verses," issued a few months ago, already
| 6,000 copies have been sold.
| We reckon that places Dennis at the top of the
| poll. His latest contribution
|
| "Digger Smith" maintains the high
| standard set by the earlier works.
| Readers of
| "Ginger Mick" will remember Little
| Smith of Collin'wood, who
|
at Sari Bair. The new book tells of his
| return from France. The story grips from the start,
| and in some respects is the best work Mr. Dennis has
| given us. It has plenty of comic relief, plenty of
| the humor that is close to tears, and, as ever, the
| human heartedness that
|
The reader is introduced to capital types
| of Australian country folk, neighbors of our old
| friends Bill and Doreen, themselves a living proof
| that
|
|
| Digger Smith thought a lot.
|
| "Out There." The poem
|
| "West" is a gem,
| and Mr. Dennis himself thinks that he has never done
| anything better. Digger, gazing on the sunset glory
| and thinking of
| reasons inevitably that there must be somethin' else
| - "some'ow." The Digger has his notion
| of what a "square deal" for the men of the A.I.F.
| should be. The climax to the book is his claim
| -
|
|
| That is an objective which cannot injure any and
| should benefit all. Digger's friend gives us a lead
| on the subject with -
|
|
| The book is sold at 4/6. There is a frontispiece,
| title page, and jacket in color and each of the poems
| has an appropriate illustration by Hal Gye. As a Xmas
| gift we reckon it beyond approach.