AustLit

'Teaching seemed to me to offer the best kind of life for writing and (l)earning. Solitary excursions, observing nature, and collecting insects and native flowers and orchids on the slopes of Mount Wellington or seaweeds and shellfish on the shores of the Der went River around Hobart or on the beaches at South Arm were an important part of my childhood. The poems in " The Real Life of Ern Malley" are laced with various references and hidden quotations, e.g., "To be born old and never seventeen" refers to Ern Malley's age and his feelings about life, but it also plays on Rimbaud's line "On n'est pas sérieux, quand on a dix-sept ans," and Rimbaud's combative nature and style seem to me to be central to the Ern Malley story, as well as to Sidney Nolan's paintings. Coleridge, Mathew Arnold, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Lowell were iconic poet-critics and in one way or the other have their respective theories of writing poetry and sometimes even try to justify the creative endeavors in the light of their criticism.' (Publication abstract)