I took some time today after a long walk in the winter wind and after yesterday’s post, to gather the Hodgins books I have and scan front and back covers and some other key pages including a couple of poems to give readers a sense of these books and the work therein.
I couldn’t locate my copy of Dispossessed. Probably, it got mixed up in my teaching materials when I stopped teaching Literature a couple of years ago. Dispossessed is Hodgins’ verse novel, and was commonly set for senior English and Literature courses over the last few years. It is included in full in his Selected Poems.
Blood and Bone (1986)
Blood and Bone (A&R, 1986)Signed by Philip HodginsPoem from ‘Blood and Bone’Back cover of ‘Blood and Bone’
Animal Warmth (A&R 1990)
Animal Warmth (A&R, 1990)Back cover of ‘Animal Warmth’
A Kick of the Footy
‘A Kick of the Footy’ was a promotional sampler published by A&R in 1990, foreshadowing a selection of football related poems in a future Hodgins book. I’m unsure whether these poems appeared in later books.
A Kick of the Footy (Poetry sampler, A&R, 1990)Foreword by Ron Barassi to ‘A Kick of the Footy’Poem ‘Snap Shot’ from ‘A Kick of the Footy’Back cover of ‘A Kick of the Footy’ – NOT FOR SALE
Things Happen (1995)
Things Happen (A&R, 1995) Brief biography from ‘Things Happen’Poem from ‘Things Happen’Back cover of ‘Things Happen’
Selected Poems (1997)
Selected Poems (A&R, 1997)Brief biography from ‘Selected Poems’Contents page 1 from ‘Selected Poems’Contents pages 2 and 3 from ‘Selected Poems’Back cover of ‘Selected Poems’
Sometimes it only takes an image or a memory or a song to bring back something you haven’t thought of in a long time.
Or a book. This week I came across a second hand copy of Philip Hodgins’ Selected Poems (A&R, 1977), that I hadn’t seen before, and I thought of Hodgins and his work again.
Born in 1959, Philip Hodgins died in 1995, nearly thirty years ago now, of cancer, much too early. I knew him, in the Melbourne poetry scene of the time, met him at various readings and corresponded with him, all too briefly.
I remember he argued for more formalism and structure in my work, which he saw as sometimes too loose. I admired his poetry too much for too many suggestions for him; a young Les Murray I think I thought, in that direct, unflinching, unsentimental perspective of someone who really knew the land and how hard it is to make a living on it.
His cancer diagnosis changed his life and his poetry, and he faced his death with bravery and anger and wonder and sadness. Naturally, the fact of his death dominated much of his writing
I reflected a few years ago in a blog post of just how little of his work remains online. It’s the same now, though I’m pleased to see that his work is still available, mostly in second hand formats.
My favourite bookshop lists First Light: A Selection of Poemshere, and his verse novel Dispossessedhere (both out of stock) and Bookfinder lists an American edition edited by Paul Kane.
The A&R edition lists the following works by Hodgins:
Blood and Bone (1986)
Down the Lake with Half a Chook (1988)
Animal Warmth (1990)
Il Linguaggia della memoria (1990)
The End of the Season (1993)
Up On All Fours (1993)
Dispossessed (1994)
Things Happen (1995)
Over the next week or so I will take a look at some of the Hodgins books I have and do some scanning and put some of the images up here, as I’ve done with Gwen Harwood, Robert Adamson and Hans Magnus Enszenberger in this blog. They deserve to be more widely seen and known.
Meanwhile, if you want to know more, seek out some of the poetry. Some further reading includes:
Adamson was a force in Australian poetry, part of the ‘new poetry’ push in the 1960s and 1970s and edited New Poetry magazine for fourteen years. By the time I came across his work, in the early 1980s, he was well established as an important voice in Australian poetry.
Personally, I was particularly drawn to the spirit of place in Adamson’s work, the belief in the importance of the ‘local’ that I have found so often in writers I admire, particularly in his case, the Hawkesbury River region. His writing about landscape and birds has been something I’ve enjoyed most in his work.
This week, after the news, I pulled some of the Adamson books from my collection and re-read some of those poems. I also re-read his memoir of prose and poetry, Wards of the State. They remain impressive work, grounded in the real world, but ‘fishing in a landscape for love’
Selected Poems (A&R, 1978)The autobiographical memoir, ‘Wards of the State’ (A&R, 1992)‘Waving to Hart Crane’ (A&R, 1994)‘The Golden Bird – New and Selected Poems’ (BlackInc 2008)
It was nice to hear about the release of a new and selected volume from Australian poet Brook Emery, launched recently in Glebe, NSW, available now from the poetry section of the Puncher and Wattman site. When I had a look recently I was surprised and impressed with the range of Australian poetry they’re publishing currently.
With a particular focus on memory and the sea, this new book brings together new poems and selections from his five previous volumes; themes that particularly appeal to me.
I’ve been reading and enjoying Brook’s work for a long time now (proof here with my post about attending his 2012 launch of ‘Collusion’, way back in 2012!), so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this significant release.
After reading and writing again about Gwen Harwood recently, I thought I’d post some images from some of the editions of her work I have. Wikipedia lists the following for Harwood and I have most of them.
The prize of my collection, probably, is my copy of the first book Poems. It’s missing the dust-jacket it originally would have had, and is a bit of a battered old library copy, but I’m happy to have a first edition of the first book of this important poet.
The next I have is The Lion’s Bride, which is a wonderful collection. My copy is a bit battered and faded, and copiously underlined.
Bone Scan (1988) is another wonderful collection which won several prizes.
I’ve got a couple of copies of the Selected Poems and they are falling apart a bit as was the tendency of the early A&R poetry editions. I bought one to a Gwen Harwood reading and she kindly signed it for me. Unfortunately, in the busy room, she mis-heard and signed it for Warren, not Warrick! Nevertheless, I cherish that one too.
My copy is underlined throughout and heavily annotated as it was the basis for my minor thesis on Harwood. That makes it less valuable for anyone else, but more valuable for me.
The two most recent ‘selections’ are still in print now. Harwood (along with Les Murray) would be one of the few Australian poets to be continually in print since her first book in 1963.
Poems (Volume 2) 1968, her second collection, is the important missing one I’d most like to find at some stage. You rarely see copies in second hand shops and I’ve seen one or two online at $150USD os so. Perhaps one day!
Looking back at her body of work, iIt’s hard to believe now that she published no books between Poems (Volume 2) (1968) and The Lion’s Bride, (1981), so no books at all during the 70s, when I think her voice would really have resonated with the times, particularly the feminist poems that seem so much in tune with the changes in Australia at that time.
I’m halfway through Anne-Marie Priest’s excellent biography of the Australian poet Gwen Harwood, My Tongue is My Own and it has already had the desired effect; making me pull a copy of Harwood’s Selected Poems off my bookshelf to have beside me as I read it.
Of course I started re-reading some old favourites and also looked through some of the other Harwood books there as well. I’ve always enjoyed Harwood’s writing and wrote my minor thesis for an M.A. at Monash University on aspects of her work calling it, Light from a Single Source. I’ve written about her poetry at length, read the poems again and again over the years, and taught Harwood in Literature classes whenever I could.
So, I have several editions of her work gathered over the years, which I was reminded of today. It was good to look through them again and I’ll post some images of those editions soon. Meanwhile, Priest’s work is highly recommended as a long overdue life of this important Australian poet.
If you’re keen to look at Harwood’s poetry yourself a number of editions are still in print. The Selected Poems from Penguin Books or The Best 100 Poems from BlackInc are both good places to start, and available from Readings as is Anne-Marie Priest’s new biography.
thinking about poetry 