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INTERVIEW

Bronwyn Lea

in conversation with Rosanna Licari
for Stylus magazine, 2002

This interview is 1,500 words
or about 3 printed pages long

Editing poetry

The University of Queensland Press is an important publishing institution in the Australian literary scene, renowned for publishing many of the finest writers and poets in Australia. Bronwyn Lea signed on as the new Poetry Editor in 2003 and Stylus asks her views on the tricky role of editing.

How long has the University of Queensland Press been around and how long has it been publishing poetry?

The University of Queensland was established in 1909, and in the first half of the century the press was used predominantly to publish university materials. It wasn’t until 1948 that UQP was established as an independent publishing house. Due in large part, I think, to the risk UQP has taken on new authors, it has grown to become one of Australia’s acclaimed literary presses, publishing the first books of Peter Carey, David Malouf, Michael Dransfield, Kate Grenville, Murray Bail and many others. UQP’s first poetry title came in 1968 with the publication of Roger McDonald’s first book, Citizens of Mist. In the last 35 years, UQP has published at some stage or another just about all of Australia’s best-known contemporary poets.


Who were some of the first poets that it published and who is in the UQP stable now?

Following Roger McDonald’s book in 1968 and Thomas Shapcott’s Inwards to the Sun in 1969, UQP launched the Paperback Poets series in 1970. The idea came from David Malouf, who saw the need for inexpensive, quick-to-produce poetry books that would appeal to the new popular audience for Australian poetry. What he proposed was a full-length, original paperback collection of poetry — something that was quite common in the US and UK at the time, but unheard of in Australia. And he wanted it to sell for only a dollar. I think surprising even himself, UQP agreed. When Malouf’s Bicycle  and Other Poems came out in 1970, it was volume one in a series of three — along with Michael Dransfield’s first collection, Streets of the Long Voyage and Rodney Hall’s Heaven, in a Way, the three titles available individually or in a boxed set. Of course, it was a hit and sold in the thousands to the youth culture of the seventies who wanted to read the poetry of their peers, not their elders.
      As I said earlier, UQP has published many of Australia’s most distinguished contemporary poets: Dransfield, Malouf, and Hall as I’ve mentioned, but also Dimitris Tsaloumas, Bruce Beaver, John Tranter, Robert Adamson, John Scott, Geoff Page, Thomas Shapcott, Andrew Taylor, Alan Wearne, Martin Harrison, Martin Johnson, Judith Rodriguez, Pam Brown, Jennifer Maiden, Dorothy Porter. It’s a long list and I’m only touching on a few. UQP’s next generation of poets included Anthony Lawrence, Judith Beveridge, Catherine Bateson, and now more recently Rebecca Edwards, Michelle Taylor, Sam Wagan Watson, MTC Cronin, and Kathryn Lomar.
      There have also been a number of terrific UQP poetry anthologies — Rodney Hall’s and Tom Shapcott’s New Impulses in Australian Poetry appearing in 1968; two anthologies compiled from the Paperback Poets series in 1974 and 1982; and, more recently, The Moment Made Marvellous edited by Thomas Shapcott. Later this year, UQP will release The Best Australian Poetry 2003, the first in what Martin Duwell and I, as general editors, hope will be a long and vibrant series showcasing the very best in contemporary Australian poetry.


You began with UQP early this year. Do you believe editors have certain biases?

I came on in January as fifth in a line of UQP poetry editors, beginning with Roger McDonald, Thomas Shapcott, Martin Duwell, and Sue Abbey. I have tremendous admiration for all of them and for their commitment to Australian poetry, and I feel a sense of responsibility to the list they’ve collectively shaped, to keep it lively and compelling. But to address your question, the answer is yes. Editorial bias at least to some extent is inevitable, but I believe more often than not it only comes into play in the very final stages of assessment. In fact, there’s usually a significant amount of consensus between editors (or poetry judges for that matter) when it comes to recognizing a good poem — not always, but very often. It’s only if you have two equally good poems placed in front of you, and you can only pick one, that personal preferences might enter into the equation.


You are a poet yourself, do you think that gives you a different perspective to an editor who doesn’t write?

There’s an argument put forth by non-writer editors that editors who write tend only to like work that’s close to what they themselves would write. Or, worse, they try to change someone’s work into something they themselves would write. And I’m sure there’s a good deal of evidence to support that. But I don’t think it’s always the case. Thomas Shapcott, for instance, during his poetry editorship at UQP, edited poetry completely different from his own work. As for myself, I’ve been reading poetry for a lot longer than I’ve been writing it, so I’d like to think this informs my estimation foremost. Sometimes, it’s true, when I’m reading a manuscript it does occur to me that I might have written a certain line differently, or used a different word, but if it’s clear the poem has an integrity of its own, it’s easy enough to put these thoughts aside. Because of course it’s these kinds of differences that keep poetry lively. But having said that, being a writer can be helpful when an author asks for suggestions on a particular poem — I think writers can offer each other valuable insight into how poems are composed and how they might be strengthened.


As an editor what do you consider when viewing a collection  of work?

Passion, originality, language. All of which are easier to recognize than to define. For me, passion includes the emotions and the body as well as the intellect. It’s the writer’s whole self functioning as an instrument of consciousness. Neruda referred to it as the ‘furious blood’ of his poems. Passion makes poems, no matter what the subject, swell with vision and break through the habitual to discover what’s imperative. Poetic originality is a matter not only of new content, but also of the development of new techniques and forms — of course, paradoxically, this is probably best achieved when a poet has a sound knowledge of tradition. Language too, particularly as it relates to voice, is vital for me. When I’m reading through the many manuscripts that arrive each week, I’m listening for language that has pulse and breath. I’m listening for the subtle music of human speech, and for a voice — a nongeneric voice — that will speak to me above the sea of information our culture is busy creating. I find it’s when these things come together, along with something unexpected or unsettling, that I know I’m holding something special in my hands.


What is a definite ‘put off’ for you?
 
Now this will get me in trouble. Probably preaching. And propaganda. By this I don’t mean mystical or political poems, which are modes I happen to like a lot, but poems that tell people, in a predigested way, how they should live their lives. I’m afraid I don’t have much time for that — as a reader or as an editor — I tend to just glaze over.
            

Who influenced you most in regard to editing work?

In a general sense, I’d have to say all the editors who have published amazing poetry and put together the journals I admire and enjoy, the editors that I can trust to seek out and deliver exceptional poetry, consistently, no matter where or who it comes from. Also in a general sense, all the teachers who have taught me how to read properly, how to find ways into seemingly impenetrable poems or to, say, appreciate a poem’s minimalism. An understanding of the various traditions in poetry is vital to knowing whether something is important and needs to be published or if it’s derivative and therefore not so important.
      More specifically, I’d have to say I’ve learnt a lot from Sue Abbey and Martin Duwell. Sue loves to take risks and is really passionate about standing up for the marginal voices in Australian literature. She’s great to bounce ideas off of because she’s so receptive to change. During her poetry editorship at UQP, she has been a strong supporter of woman and indigenous poets, and it’s been her great achievement to bring these voices to the UQP list. Martin, too, has been terrific. He’s spent 35 years as a poetry critic — which makes him something of a national treasure — and I’ve found him very insightful in discussions relating to possible ways that one might shape a poetry list.

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