AustLit

In seeking an 'Australian line' through the history of Australian poetry, Brooks conclusion is that '[A]ny but the most open would be implausible. An Australian line than cannot at one and the same time accommodate the city and the bush, the masculine and the feminine, the settler and the indigenous, the old arrivals and the new, the present and the absent, the self-confident and the self-effacing, the anxious and the non, the generous and the minimalist ... will not stand much scrutiny. ... One thing I might hazard, almost for certain, is that anyone who does think they have found an answer will find themselves, not long after, frustrated that Australians themselves are ignoring it.