"International Experts" by Pamela Brown [Introduced by Thomas Moody]

With the recent announcement to open Australia's international borders next month (or as the Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls it on his official website, "taking steps to reopen to the world", which sounds more like a chapter from a self-help manual than government policy), I thought it would be a good moment to share Pam Brown's "International Experts".

Brown is a central figure in the formative period of contemporary Australian poetry which took place in 1970s Sydney. With Anna Couani, Ken Bolton and Sal Brererton, she helped put together the iconic Magic Sam magazine, which published some of Australia's most important poets. Brown has published more than twenty books of her own poetry and prose, including Dear Deliria: New and Selected Poems, which won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry in 2004. She has also served as the poetry editor for Overland and an associate editor of the brilliant and too-short lived Jacket magazine.

 

 

"International Experts" cleverly appraises the appeal of a place with its current cultural output. Both London and Paris have "had it", while "the americans / are doing / all the writing / these days". The speaker settles for a trip within Australia, and, based on her criteria for choosing a destination, why not? With Brown and her coterie, Australia just might be the most appealing destination of the lot.

 

 

International Experts

                                                        
when we get restless
we talk about
where we could go

we decide
london has had it
except for music.
madness.
marianne faithfull.
the selecter.
paris has had it
except for a few memorable spots.
paul eluard.
gertrude stein.
statre. semiology
and plastic bertrand
from belgium.

of course
we mention 
new york.
the americans
are doing 
all the writing
these days.

asia and india
are out of the question.
no package deal ashrams.
although japan
is interesting
comics and posters.

really though 
berlin
is the place to go.
fassbinder. brecht.
a politically 
complex past.

experts.
micky met
sumo wrestlers
in japan
before america
and europe.
jill saw paris
and london 
last year.

down in sydney
the air goes bad
and I fill up with gases,
go to the movies,
by books, a record
and a train ticket
to queensland.

 

Comments

[Sidney Ghoti]

Wonderful post.