Australian Poetry Since 1788

by Robert Gray (Editor), Geoffrey Lehmann (Editor)

Overview

The first of its kind, this landmark poetry anthology contains the work of Australia’s major poets as well as lesser-known but equally affecting writers of Australian poetry since 1788. Ranging from concrete to prose poems, from the cerebral to the naïve, from the humorous to the confessional, and from formal to free verse, this work also features translations of some striking Aboriginal song poems. With pieces from 170 Australian poets, as well as short critical biographies, this careful reevaluation of Australian poetry makes this a superb book that can be read and enjoyed over a lifetime.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781742232638
Publisher:	UNSW Press
Publication date:	11/01/2011
Pages:	1108
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 3.00(d)

About the Author

Robert Gray is an Australian poet, a freelance writer, and a critic. He is the author of numerous books, including Afterimages, The Land I Came Through Last, and Nameless Earth. He is the recipient of numerous poetry awards, such as the Age Book of the Year for Poetry, the National Poetry Prize of the Adelaide Arts Festival, the NSW Premier’s Award, and the Victorian Premier’s Award. Geoffrey Lehmann is an Australian poet, an editor, a children’s writer, and the literary reviewer for the Australian newspaper.  He is the author of numerous books, including Children’s Games, Collected Poems, and Spring Forest. His poems are widely published, most recently in the New Yorker.

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Australian Poetry Since 1788

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By Geoffrey Lehmann, Robert Gray

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

Copyright © 2011 Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-74224-566-9

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CHAPTER 1

TWO ABORIGINAL SONGS (Anonymous)

Over the last thirty years, anthologies of Australian poetry typically begin with Aboriginal poems, to acknowledge what Les Murray has called "the senior culture". We were surprised to discover this practice began with A. B. Paterson's Old Bush Songs (1905).

We preface our anthology with the two Aboriginal songs with which he opened his collection. He provided this comment: "These songs were supplied by Mr S. M. Mowle, a very old colonist, with much experience of the blacks fifty years ago. He writes – 'I could never find out what the words meant, and I don't think the blacks themselves knew.' Other authorities, however, say that the blacks' songs were very elaborate, and that they composed corroborees which reached a high dramatic level."

The Aboriginal presence is much stronger in Australian poetry than the Amerindian presence in North American poetry in English. One reason may be that Europeans settling in Australia were forced to see Australia to some extent through Aboriginal eyes, because of the radically different nature of the Australian landscape, its fauna and flora. Australia appeared a strange place to European eyes and the early settlers were happy to borrow Aboriginal words to name places and animals.

It is interesting that in the two Aboriginal songs below, the same word may appear several times, sometimes with the ending of the word varied. The repetitions suggest that perhaps there is some form of parallelism, as in the Hebrew psalms. This is the case with other Aboriginal songs that appear in translation later in this volume. No words are common to both songs. Are they in different languages? These poems, in their mysterious presence, signify the immemorial Aboriginal voice of the country.

Two Aboriginal Songs

I

Korindabriã, korindabriã, bogaronã, bogaronã. Iwariniang iwaringdo, iwariniang, iwaringdo, iwariniang, iwaringdo, iwariniang, iwaringdo, iwaringime. Iwaringiang. iwaringdõõ, ilanenienow, coombagongniengowe, ilanenienow. coombagongiengowé, ilanenienowe combagoniengowé, ilanenienimme.

II

Buddha-buddharo nianga, boomelanã, bulleranga, crobinea, narnmalã, yibbilwaadjo nianga, boomelanã, a, boomelana, buddha-buddharo, nianga, boomelana, buddharo nianga, boomelana, bullerangã, crobineã, narnmala, yibbilwaadjo, nianga, croilanume, a, croilangà, yibbilwaadjo, nianga, croilanga, yibbilwaadjo, nianga croilangã. coondheranea. tabiabina, boorganmala, yibbilwaadjo, nianga, croilanoome.

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND (Anonymous)

"Van Diemen's Land" is justly the most famous convict ballad. It exists in many different versions. Rather than choose a particular one, we decided to combine the best of four variations. Two of the versions we considered had England as the home country of the three poachers, and used English names and references, and the other two had the poachers coming from Ireland. In general, our composite is based on the version in Russel Ward's The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads (1964) as being the liveliest and most idiomatic. In the ballad, all three men were sentenced under a law specifying transportation to Van Diemen's Land for fourteen years, if such a group was found together in a wood, and one had a gun or bludgeon (Old Bush Songs, edited Warren Fahey and Graham Seal (2005) at page 55). There was much public sympathy for poachers; this was widely regarded as a crime from the gentry's viewpoint only. In fact, few convicts were transported for poaching.

    Van Diemen's Land

    Come, all you gallant poachers, that ramble free from care,
    That walk out of a moonlight night, with your dog, your gun, and snare;
    Where the lusty hare and pheasant you have at your command,
    Not thinking that your last career is on Van Diemen's Land.

    Poor Thomas Brown from Nenagh Town, Jack Murphy, and poor Joe,
    We was three daring poachers, as the gentry well does know;
    One night we was trepanned, my boys, by keepers hid in sand,
    And for fourteen years transported was unto Van Diemen's Land.

    The first day that we landed upon that fatal shore,
    The planters they came flocking round, full twenty score or more;
    They ranked us up like horses, and sold us out of hand,
    And they yok'd us up to to ploughs, brave boys, to plough Van Diemen's Land.

    There was a girl from Dublin Town, Rosanna was her name,
    For fourteen years transported was, for playing of the game.
    Our planter bought her freedom, and he married her out of hand;
    She gave to us good usage upon Van Diemen's Land.

    The huts that we must live in are built of sods and clay,
    With rotten straw for bedding and we dare not to say nay.
    Our cots we fence with fire, we slumber when we can,
    To drive away the dogs and tigers upon Van Diemen's Land.

    Oh! oft when I am slumbering, I have a pleasant dream:
    A-lying in old Ireland beside some purling stream,
    With my true love upon my side, and a jug of ale in hand,
    But I wake a brokenhearted man all in Van Diemen's Land.

    God bless our wives and families, likewise that happy shore,
    That isle of sweet contentment which we shall see no more.
    As for our wretched females, see them we seldom can,
    There's twenty to one woman upon Van Diemen's Land.

    So all you jolly poacher lads, this warning take from me:
    I'd have you quit night-walking and to shun bad company,
    Throw by your dogs and snares, to you I do speak plain,
    For if you knew our hardships you would never poach again.

BOTANY BAY (Anonymous)

"Botany Bay" was a stage song in the 1880s, long after transportation of convicts had ceased, but is likely to have an earlier origin. The version we use is from Russel Ward's The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads, which seems preferable to that in Stewart and Keesing's edition of Old Bush Songs. Ward notes that "rum-culls" means "old mates in crime". The Old Bailey is the Central Criminal Court in London.

Botany Bay

Farewell to old England for ever,
Farewell to our rum-culls as well;
Farewell to the well-loved Old Bailey
Where I used for to cut such a swell.

Chorus

Singing too-ra-lie, too-ra-lie, addity,
Singing too-ra-lie, too-ra-lie, aye,
Singing too-ra-lie, too-ra-lie, addity,
We're sailing for Botany Bay.

'Taint leaving Old England we cares about,
'Taint 'cause we mis-spells what we knows;
But because all we light-fingered gentry
Hops around with a log on our toes.

There's the captain as is our commandier,
There's the bosun and all the ship's crew,
There's the first and the second class passengers
Knows what we poor convicts goes through.

For fourteen long years I'm transported,
For fourteen long years and a day,
Just for meeting a cove in the alley,
And stealing his ticker away.

Oh, had I the wings of a turtle-dove!
I'd soar on my pinions so high;
Slap bang to the arms of my Polly-love,
And in her sweet bosom I'd die.

Now, all you young dukies and duchesses,
Take warning from what I do say,
Mind, all is your own as you touchesses,
Or you'll meet us in Botany Bay.

THE WILD COLONIAL BOY (Anonymous)

'The Wild Colonial Boy' is about a mythical bushranger, but shares a chorus with "Bold Jack Donahoo", a possibly earlier ballad based on a bushranger who was shot dead by mounted troopers in 1830. "The Wild Colonial Boy" became an informal national anthem until it was replaced by A. B. Paterson's "Waltzing Matilda" in popular affection.

Paterson made these illuminating, comments in his collection Old Bush Songs: "All old Scotchmen, to whom Sir Walter Scott read some of his collected ballads, expressed the opinion that the ballads were spoilt by printing. And these bush songs, to be heard at their best, should be heard to an accompaniment of clashing shears when the voice of a shearer rises through the din caused by the rush and bustle of a shearing shed, the scrambling of the sheep in their pens, and the hurry of the pickers-up; or when, on the roads, the cattle are restless on their camp at night and the man on watch, riding round them, strikes up 'Bold Jack Donahoo' to steady their nerves a little. Drovers know that they must not sneak quietly about restless cattle – it is better to sing to them and let them know that someone is stirring and watching; and many a mob of wild, pike-horned Queensland cattle, half inclined to stampede, has listened contentedly to the 'Wild Colonial Boy' droned out in true bush fashion till the daylight began to break and the mob was safe for another day. Heard under such circumstances as these the songs have quite a character of their own. A great deal depends, too, on the way in which they are sung. The true bushman never hurries his songs. They are designed expressly to pass the time on long journeys or slow, wearisome rides after sheep or tired cattle; so the songs are sung conscientiously through – chorus and all – and the last three words of the song are always spoken, never sung."

The Wild Colonial Boy

'Tis of a wild Colonial boy, Jack Doolan was his name,
Of poor but honest parents he was born in Castlemaine.
He was his father's only hope, his mother's only joy.
And dearly did his parents love the wild Colonial boy.

Chorus

Come, all my hearties, we'll roam the mountains
high,
Together we will plunder, together we will die.
We'll wander over valleys, and gallop over plains,
And we'll scorn to live in slavery, bound down with iron chains.

He was scarcely sixteen years of age when he left his
father's home,
And through Australia's sunny clime a bushranger did roam.
He robbed those wealthy squatters, their stock he did
destroy,
And a terror to Australia was the wild Colonial boy.

In sixty-one this daring youth commenced his wild career,
With a heart that knew no danger, no foeman did he fear.
He stuck up the Beechworth mail coach, and robbed Judge
McEvoy,
Who trembled, and gave up his gold to the wild Colonial
boy.

He bade the Judge "Good morning," and told him to beware,
That he'd never rob a hearty chap that acted on the square,
And never to rob a mother of her son and only joy,
Or else you may turn outlaw, like the wild Colonial boy.

One day as he was riding the mountain side along,
A-listening to the little birds, their pleasant laughing song,
Three mounted troopers rode along – Kelly, Davis, and
FitzRoy.
They thought that they would capture him – the wild
Colonial boy.

"Surrender now, Jack Doolan, you see there's three to one.
Surrender now, Jack Doolan, you daring highwayman."
He drew a pistol from his belt, and shook the little toy.
"I'll fight, but not surrender," said the wild Colonial boy.

He fired at Trooper Kelly, and brought him to the ground,
And in return from Davis received a mortal wound.
All shattered through the jaw he lay still firing at FitzRoy,
And that's the way they captured him – the wild Colonial
boy.

CHAPTER 2

BARNETT LEVY (?)

This sparkling theatrical song was published in Australia's first newspaper, the Sydney Gazette, on 14 July 1832 "as it ought to be sung in the Theatre Royal, Sydney, by Mr Bert Levy, in the character of the Ticket-of-leave Holder". His actual name as reported in Stewart and Keesing's edition of Old Bush Songs was Barnett Levy. Stage personalities often performed material they wrote themselves. If he is the author, Levy is the first of a line of stage versifiers in Australia, extending through Charles Thatcher to Barry Humphries.

There was a shortage of sterling currency in the early days of the colony, and various alternatives were used as currency, such as rum. Those born in Australia came to be known as "currency lads and lasses", and the British-born were sometimes "sterling people". Female convicts who offended were punished at the "Female Factory".

    Botany Bay Courtship

    The Currency Lads may fill their glasses,
    And drink to the health of the Currency Lasses;
    But the lass I adore, the lass for me,
    Is a lass in the Female Factory.

    O! Molly's her name, and her name is Molly,
    Although she was tried by the name of Polly;
    She was tried and was cast for death at Newry,
    But the judge was bribed and so were the jury.

    She got "death recorded" in Newry town,
    For stealing her mistress's watch and gown;
    Her little boy Paddy can tell you the tale,
    His father was turnkey of Newry jail.

    The first time I saw the comely lass
    Was at Parramatta, going to Mass;
    Says I, "l'll marry you now in an hour,"
    Says she, "Well, go and fetch Father Power."

    But I got into trouble that very same night!
    Being drunk in the street I got into a fight,
    A constable seized me – I gave him a box –
    And was put in the watch-house and then in the stocks.

    O! it's very unaisy as I may remember,
    To sit in the stocks in the month of December;
    With the north wind so hot, and the hot sun right over,
    O! sure, and it's no place at all for a lover!

    "It's worse than the treadmill," says I, "Mr Dunn,
    To sit here all day in the hate of the sun!"
    "Either that or a dollar," says he, "for your folly,"
    But if I'd a dollar I'd drink it with Molly.

    But now I am out again, early and late
    I sigh and I cry at the Factory gate,
    "O! Mrs R---, late Mrs F---n,
    O! won't you let Molly out very soon?"

    "Is it Molly McGuigan?" says she to me,
    "Is it not?" says I, for she knowed it was she.
    "Is it her you mean that was put in the stocks
    For beating her mistress, Mrs Cox?"

    "O! yes and it is, madam, pray let me in,
    I have brought her a half-pint of Cooper's best gin,
    She likes it as well as she likes her own mother,
    O! now let me in, madam, I am her brother."

    So the Currency Lads may fill their glasses,
    And drink to the health of the Currency Lasses;
    But the lass I adore, the lass for me,
    Is a lass in the Female Factory.

CHAPTER 3

FRANCIS McNAMARA ("Frank the Poet") c. 1810–1861

Francis McNamara is entered in convict records as both Catholic and Protestant, and accounts differ as to where he came from in Ireland. But when tried at Kilkenny in January 1832 and sentenced to seven years transportation for smashing a shop window and stealing a bolt of cloth, he was reported to be "a real Corkonian" in his speech. He entertained the court with an extempore epigram to celebrate his sentence to Botany Bay.

He reached Sydney in September 1832 and over the next eight years received fourteen floggings (650 lashes), was put in an ironed gang for three months, served three and a half years in road gangs, spent three months on the treadmill and thirteen days in solitary confinement. He was assigned in 1838 to the Australian Agricultural Co. in Calala and then was moved to Stroud where he worked as a shepherd. When the company decided he was to work in its underground mines in Newcastle, he refused to be treated as slave labour, and was transferred to an ironed gang working in Woolloomooloo. He wrote a long poem of protest at the proposal to send him down the mine, ending:

    When the quick and the dead shall stand in array
    Cited at the trumpet's sound,
    Even then, damn me if I'd work a day
    For the Company underground.

    Nor over ground.

In 1842, after joining a gang of bushrangers, he was sentenced to seven months transportation to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). He received his ticket of leave in 1847 and a full pardon in 1849. The only subsequent record of him is an appearance on the Mudgee goldfields in 1861.

The poem "A Convict's Lament on the Death of Captain Logan" is generally regarded by experts as having been written by "Frank the Poet", but it exists in various forms under various titles. Because there appears to be no clearly authentic original version, we have used the liveliest one, which appears in Russel Ward's The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads, but with one significant change. The first four lines of the version below are lines 13 to 16 in the version he reproduces. However, the more popular, simplified version (which is less interesting and is known as "Moreton Bay") has these lines at the start of the poem. This is clearly where they belong, creating a single coherent narrative, rather than two stories of transportation, one of which has no ending and the other no start. By following the narrative sequence of the popular version, the line "Twelve years transportation to Moreton Bay!" moves from line twelve in Ward's version to line 16 at the end of the second verse, where it marks the first appearance of what becomes an ominous refrain.

McNamara did not write for the printed page and probably lacked the opportunity to revise and improve his poetry. "A Convict's Lament on the Death of Captain Logan" is probably one of many ballads he originated and is more polished than the poetry that survives in his own handwriting, so that it was most likely improved by anonymous singers and reciters.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Australian Poetry Since 1788 by Geoffrey Lehmann, Robert Gray. Copyright © 2011 Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray. Excerpted by permission of University of New South Wales Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

INTRODUCTION,
ANONYMOUS,
BARNETT LEVY (?),
FRANCIS McNAMARA ("Frank the Poet") c. 1810–1861,
CHARLES HARPUR 1813–1868,
ANONYMOUS,
CHARLES THATCHER 1831–1878,
ANONYMOUS,
WILLIAM PERRIE 19th century,
ADAM LINDSAY GORDON 1833–1870,
HENRY KENDALL 1839–1882,
CHARLIE "BOWYANG" YORKE (?),
JOSEPH FURPHY ("Tom Collins") 1843–1912,
ADA CAMBRIDGE 1844–1926,
ANONYMOUS,
THOMAS E. SPENCER 1845–1910,
MARCUS CLARKE 1846–1881,
MARY HANNAY FOOTT 1846–1918,
ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY 1847–1922,
JOHN FARRELL 1851–1904,
VICTOR DALEY 1858–1905,
ALICE WERNER 1859–1935,
JACK MOSES (?) 1861–1945,
W. T. GOODGE 1862–1909,
A. B. PATERSON ("The Banjo") 1864–1941,
MARY GILMORE 1865–1962,
HARRY MORANT ("The Breaker") 1865–1902,
BARCROFT BOAKE 1866–1892,
HENRY LAWSON 1867–1922,
ANONYMOUS (possibly Henry Lawson),
MARY FULLERTON ("E") 1868–1946,
E. J. BRADY 1869–1952,
WILL OGILVIE 1869–1963,
CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN 1870–1932,
"BELLERIVE"(Joseph Tishler) 1871–1957,
JOHN SHAW NEILSON 1872–1942,
JACK MATHIEU 1873–1949,
"RITA SUNYASEE",
C. J. DENNIS 1876–1938,
HUGH McCRAE 1876–1958,
P. J. HARTIGAN ("John O'Brien") 1878–1952,
FRANK WILMOT ("Furnley Maurice") 1881–1942,
FREDERIC MANNING 1882–1935,
"BRIAN VREPONT" (B.A. Truebridge) 1882–1955,
ETHEL ANDERSON 1883–1958,
VANCE PALMER 1885–1959,
DOROTHEA MACKELLAR 1885–1968,
HARLEY MATTHEWS 1889–1968,
JAMES DEVANEY 1890–1976,
LESBIA HARFORD 1891–1927,
LEON GELLERT 1892–1977,
"RICKETY KATE" (Minnie Agnes Filson) 1898–1971,
KENNETH SLESSOR 1901–1971,
R. D. FITZGERALD 1902–1987,
J. A. R. McKELLAR 1904–1932,
A. D. HOPE 1907–2000,
EVE LANGLEY 1908–1974,
RONALD McCUAIG 1908–1993,
SONGS OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA (T. G. H. Strehlow) 1908–1978,
ELIZABETH RIDDELL 1910–1998,
W. HART-SMITH 1911–1990,
HAL PORTER 1911–1984,
ROLAND ROBINSON 1912–1992,
JOHN BLIGHT 1913–1995,
DOUGLAS STEWART 1913–1985,
DAVID CAMPBELL 1915–1979,
JOHN MANIFOLD 1915–1985,
DAVID MARTIN (Lajos or Ludwig Detsinyi) 1915–1997,
JUDITH WRIGHT 1915–2000,
ABORIGINAL SONG CYCLES (Ronald M. Berndt) 1916–1990,
HAROLD STEWART 1916–1995,
JAMES McAULEY 1917–1976,
ANNE ELDER 1918–1976,
"ERN MALLEY" 1918–1943,
ROSEMARY DOBSON 1920–2012,
GWEN HARWOOD 1920–1995,
OODGEROO NOONUCCAL (Kath Walker) 1920–1993,
LEX BANNING 1921–1965,
NAN McDONALD 1921–1974,
DIMITRIS TSALOUMAS 1921–,
GEOFFREY DUTTON 1922–1998,
DOROTHY HEWETT 1923–2002,
ERIC ROLLS 1923–2007,
VINCENT BUCKLEY 1925–1988,
J. R. ROWLAND 1925–1996,
FRANCIS WEBB 1925–1973,
ALAN RIDDELL 1927–1977,
BRUCE BEAVER 1928–2004,
PETER PORTER 1929–2010,
BRUCE DAWE 1930–,
EVAN JONES 1931–,
VIVIAN SMITH 1933–,
BARRY HUMPHRIES 1934–,
DAVID MALOUF 1934–,
CHRIS WALLACE-CRABBE 1934–,
KATE LLEWELLYN 1936–,
JUDITH RODRIGUEZ 1936–,
LES MURRAY 1938–,
JAS H. DUKE 1939–1992,
J. S. HARRY 1939–,
CLIVE JAMES 1939–,
PETER STEELE 1939–2012,
GEOFFREY LEHMANN 1940–,
JAN OWEN 1940–,
GEOFF PAGE 1940–,
ANDREW TAYLOR 1940–,
ROBERT ADAMSON 1943–,
CAROLINE CADDY 1944–,
ROBERT GRAY 1945–,
MARK O'CONNOR 1945–,
SANDY FITTS 1946–,
ALEX SELENITSCH 1946–,
GARY CATALANO 1947–2002,
MARTIN JOHNSTON 1947–1990,
PETER KOCAN 1947–,
RHYLL McMASTER 1947–,
HOMER RIETH 1947–,
JOHN ANDERSON 1948–1997,
DENNIS HASKELL 1948–,
KATE JENNINGS 1948–,
TONY LINTERMANS 1948–,
JOHN A. SCOTT 1948–,
ALEX SKOVRON 1948–,
ALAN WEARNE 1948–,
KEVIN BROPHY 1949–,
JENNIFER COMPTON 1949–,
LAURIE DUGGAN 1949–,
ALAN GOULD 1949–,
JAMIE GRANT 1949–,
SUSAN HAMPTON 1949–,
MARTIN HARRISON 1949–,
JOHN JENKINS 1949–,
PHILIP NEILSEN 1949–,
VICKI RAYMOND 1949–,
TRANSLATIONS OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY ABORIGINAL SONGS,
JOHN FORBES 1950–1998,
PHILIP SALOM 1950–,
ANDREW SANT 1950–,
STEPHEN EDGAR 1951–,
PETER GOLDSWORTHY 1951–,
ROBERT HARRIS 1951–1993,
ANIA WALWICZ 1951–,
IAN McBRYDE 1953–,
ANDREW LANSDOWN 1954–,
DOROTHY PORTER 1954–2008,
JENNIFER HARRISON 1955–,
PETER ROSE 1955–,
JUDITH BEVERIDGE 1956–,
ELIZABETH HODGSON 1956–,
GIG RYAN 1956–,
ANTHONY LAWRENCE 1957–,
SARAH DAY 1958–,
CAROL JENKINS 1958–,
MARK O'FLYNN 1958–,
PHILIP HODGINS 1959–1995,
MIKE LADD 1959–,
JORDIE ALBISTON 1961–,
ALISON CROGGON 1962–,
EMMA LEW 1962–,
CRAIG SHERBORNE 1962–,
TRICIA DEARBORN 1963–,
LUCY DOUGAN 1966–,
GREG McLAREN 1967–,
EMILY BALLOU 1968–,
BRONWYN LEA 1969–,
JEMAL SHARAH 1969–,
JANE GIBIAN 1972–,
LISA GORTON 1972–,
PETRA WHITE 1975–,
AIDAN COLEMAN 1976–,
STEPHEN McINERNEY 1976–,
EMMA JONES 1977–,
ELIZABETH CAMPBELL 1980–,
L. K. HOLT 1982–,
JOSEPHINE ROWE 1984–,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
INDEX OF POETS,