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GRAEME WILSONA Selection of Japanese VerseThe Wind Among BamboosAnything given to you needs be unusual:I've tried to paint the wind among bamboos.Listen. That sound among the topmost branches:The wind, or someone weeping? Could I chooseIt would be both that called you from my painting.The ancient saw is as true of sound as of sight:In painting a tiger, always it's the bonesThat are the very devil to get right.Hsu Wei (1521-1593)RunawayFrom kite- and eagle-strike the chick can trustIts mother for protection. Itchy-toed,I have left my home, I have shaken off its dustAnd my heart goes trembling every inch of the road.Fei Ssu-huang (18th century)32WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989
JOHN McCALLUMIrish Memories and Australian Hopes:William Butler Yeats and Louis EssonLouis Esson was Australia's first modem playwright. He was also a minor poet,a journalist, critic and commentator on Australian cultural life, but he alwaysregarded his major task to be the creation of a distinctively Australian school ofplaywriting, using distinctively Australian material. He was working, however, inan almost total theatrical vacuum, and his thought came to be dominated by a seriesof nationalist models from throughout the Western world. With hindsight it is notsurprising that he failed, but he is remembered still, for his struggle, if not for hisachievement, as a pioneer.William Yeats was Ireland's first modem playwright. He was also of course a majorpoet, critic and commentator, a cultural hero in the early years of the Irish nationalistliterary movement and a great and charismatic theatrical leader. Yeats created hisown theatre, and to do so he drew on a rich and ancient folk tradition, which herecreated for his own ends, and also on one of the most important new Europeanmodernist movements of his time - Symbolism. Events - political and theatrical- overtook him, but unlike Esson he was for a time, in the theatre and culturalpolitics of his country, leading the field.In this paper I would like to tell the story of the relationship between Yeats andEsson. The central irony of the story is that Esson's nationalism grew out of hisadmiration for his Irish model and his personal devotion to the example of Yeats.This strange combination of nationalism and reliance on overseas models is a featureof each of the three high points of Australian theatre and drama in this century.In the 1950s it was English and in the late 1960s and early 1970s it was Americanbut in the 1920s, when Esson was trying to establish his 'Pioneer Players', it wasIrish. In each case there were other influences, and in each case there was adistinctively Australian flavour to the work, but the central irony - that Australiantheatrical nationalism has always been imported - remains.In the story I am about to tell a further irony arises from the personality of Essonhimself. He was an internationalist by temperament, but under the charismaticleadership of Yeats he turned his attention away from his natural interests to becomea crusading nationalist.To parody the story slightly: Esson was a young Melbourne cosmopolitan, if youcan imagine such a thing, who travelled to Europe in 1905 in search of artisticstimulation in the salons and cafes of Bloomsbury and Montmartre. There he mettwo crazy Irish nationalists who sent him back to the bush and told him to writeabout cows and sheep and mad, lonely boundary riders. Yeats had already pickedup Synge in Paris, where he was writing critical articles about French poets (as Essonhad also done) and had sent him to the Aran islands to do original work. ThenYeats and Synge together picked up Esson, first in London and then again, aftera futile escape attempt, in Paris, and returned him to Australia to try to create afolk theatre of the bush. Esson resisted briefly but he was a very timid man withWESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989 33
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTSWESTERLYVOLUME 34, No.2, JU
Page 5: WESTERLYa quarterly reviewISSN 0043
Page 8 and 9: JAN KEMPTo My Father, M.H.K.My fath
Page 10 and 11: JAN KEMPThe GypsySuddenly before yo
Page 12 and 13: WONG PHUI NAMA Death in the WardThe
Page 14 and 15: WONG PHUI NAMCousinI had to call to
Page 16 and 17: WONG PHUI NAMObitIt is as thin smok
Page 18 and 19: So thus I lie here fearful of movem
Page 20 and 21: VIRGINIA BERNARDA ValedictionWhen N
Page 22 and 23: "Yeah, yeah," I call, returning the
Page 24 and 25: she flops for a bit, slurps her tea
Page 26 and 27: well her students did, she was neve
Page 28 and 29: English or Indian, that they had th
Page 30 and 31: ANDREW TAYLORSpringSpring is a dive
Page 32 and 33: CAROL SElTZERAiming for the MouthTr
Page 36 and 37: a highly ambivalent attitude to his
Page 38 and 39: Esson attended some rehearsals of T
Page 40 and 41: the literary life of Bloomsbury. Lo
Page 42 and 43: Without Yeats Esson would quite lik
Page 44 and 45: "What theatre do you have in Austra
Page 46 and 47: In the back room Esson could feel t
Page 48 and 49: "When we started our little theatre
Page 50 and 51: a screen against a wall. A theatre
Page 52 and 53: VINCENT O'SULLIVANSinging Mastery:
Page 54 and 55: flighty relation in most statements
Page 56 and 57: living and the dead; that places hi
Page 58 and 59: quite diverse traditions towards th
Page 60 and 61: WARRICK WYNNEThe Wetlands (for Liam
Page 62 and 63: JAN OWENSmileOur mother aimed the b
Page 64 and 65: RICHARD KELLY TIPPINGOlympic Airway
Page 66 and 67: DAVID REITERBear by the Jasper Road
Page 68 and 69: (At twenty eight you did not bother
Page 70 and 71: left, would have risen and walked o
Page 72 and 73: He had hair like mine used to be, t
Page 74 and 75: OLIVE PELLThe QuestionTell me how t
Page 76 and 77: BRIAN MOONANAT 515: MASS LECTURE Th
Page 78 and 79: PETER KIRKPATRICKTear HereThe bay i
Page 80 and 81: JOHN WINTERThe Bird ManIn wooded, p
Page 82 and 83: KNUTE SKINNERAugust 15There's a lig
Page 84 and 85:
M.E. PATTI WALKERThe Hook"Aren't yo
Page 86 and 87:
QMNQMNQMNQMNapartheid man, this is
Page 88 and 89:
QMNQMNQMNeasy because you don't bel
Page 90 and 91:
lands or which have been taken over
Page 92 and 93:
GEOFF GOODFELLOWToo MuchDianne is 1
Page 94 and 95:
SHANE McCAULEYSouth Fremantle, Summ
Page 96 and 97:
JEAN KENTWaiting Out the DroughtWai
Page 98 and 99:
STEPHEN MAGEEJesus Falls, South Aus
Page 100 and 101:
SIMON BROWNBlue Hole, Santothe colo
Page 102 and 103:
CONAL FITZPATRICKA Brown Dog, Off A
Page 104 and 105:
PAUL HETHERINGTONOne RoomIn teeming
Page 106 and 107:
society, or, in the terms of the my
Page 108 and 109:
emphasised (I think) in the referen
Page 110 and 111:
Summer Leaves". This continues the
Page 112 and 113:
Deficiency Bill in Western Australi
Page 114 and 115:
invocation of pastoral near the beg
Page 116 and 117:
particularly dreaded). The final re
Page 118 and 119:
VINCENT O'SULLIVAN - is one of New
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