READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

Max Richards at the window overlooking Lake Union in Seattle A sequence of four dream poems arrived from Seattle by email on the 20 th of May 2016. As with ‘share 6’, Max Richards (1937-2016) reveals how an intense reader of literature will meet authors in their dreams, whether local or exotic. He liked to present some of his rambling verse of this kind in different fonts and point-sizes. Dear Readers, I Dreamed 1. In a Manner of Speaking Dear readers, how are you all enjoying my new poem - OK so far? - opens well? I say all - as if you’re plural, if not multiple, however alone you are as you read. Alone - but not lonely? We keep each other  kindly company. Truly, I have trust in what we can achieve together, a sort of double-jointed, double- handed enterprise: like a sparrow tangled in a spring-green hedge a phrase tries to emerge. What arrives is like a simile, trailing twigs and green debris. The ...

A Trick of Lightness New and Selected Poems by Chris Wallace-Crabbe (Carcarnet Oxford Poets; 2013) Chris Wallace-Crabbe, New and Selected Poems Reviewer: Philip Harvey Weighty words and heavy ideas are the very stuff of this poetry, and yet one after-effect of reading Chris Wallace-Crabbe is a sense of lightness. Lightness was a recurring theme of praise for his work at the recent Melbourne symposium held in his honour, as he entered his eightieth year. The Psalmist talks of fourscore years being one of labour and sorrow, but this is not the main impression given by the new poems here. A marvellous delight in wordplay is coupled with a stable ability to describe the multidirectional mind and blessed body, as they walk lightly across the earth. Lightness does not mean lightweight, for indeed this book is packed with material that obeys the laws of gravity. One eye is trained permanently on tradition. Nor by lightness are we talking about light verse, that underr...

This is a paper on the poem ‘Good Friday Seder at Separation Creek’ by Chris Wallace-Crabbe written for the symposium in his honour held at University College, Parkville, on Saturday the 31 st of August 2013. A shorter version of this paper was read at the symposium itself, to meet the set time limit of ten minutes. The poem was first published in the poet’s collection ‘Rungs of Time’ (Oxford University Press, 1993).   Separation Creek is a pretty inlet with its own hamlet on the Great Ocean Road halfway between Lorne and Apollo Bay. The exact reason for the name remains inconclusive, maybe something to do with the early timber industry, or something brought back from France in 1918. It is a weekender, which is why the family in this poem is down for Easter holidays. The title warns us that complexities and ironies abound, for the family plans to conduct that most ancient of Jewish familial obligations, the seder meal commemorating the Passover in Exodus, on the most...