Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

kris hemensley, 10 rushall cres., north fitzroy, victoria,
australia.

dear Pete -

Second Aeon 18 arrived today. Many thanks for it, & for remembering across the 13,000 miles that separate any of us here from you over there! i dont recall if i wrote you on receipt of the double-issue, mid year, i suspect i did, but forgive if i duplicate information here.

Well - one year down under has been spent writing, resting, reading, grogging, & with a new summer coming in, swimming i hope, browning, & just a leetle smoke thankyou! I was awarded a literary grant as of August 1st, 1973 for a year & worth $5,000 (which is £3,750 on current exchange rates - the English dropping all the time so it seems - 2.2 to the dollar at one time & now a crazy 1.6 - friends from whom we were renting a house this winter who were in UK & Europe on holidays said that a dollar buys in Australia as much as a pound does in England... i know from girth-size that life is much better here. . !) - also $800 for the second series of the magazine, the condition on that being that the major part be spent on contributors payments. So on a budget of around $200 per 70 page issue, about $130 goes out to poets, here, US, & UK, starting with No 3, the current number. i note with interest yr comment on one little-mag in yr listings who have decided to make a small payment to poets, your advice being for more pages - here it is decidedly a professional attitude to publishing, to grants. The $2 i pay per page is modest here. But in England wouldnt be bad / £1.50 or so. Of course the respective economies are so different. Min. wage here is $51 & the average over $100. But somewhere along the line poets should be able to demand a proper payment. The Welsh Arts Council seems much more enlightened than the UK mob. It might be interesting to find out a possible labour govts attitudes to patronage. Living here in the new spirit (first Labour govt for 23 years!) its easy to pick holes in the amateur & backward British structures. But -getting my grant(s) has made me think a bit about the relative status of writers & presses in Britain.

On Earth Ship with yr comments at my elbow (a pity not also a Dublin guinness or Amsterdam Heinnekens or even a Carlton Frosty but... !) - i plead guilty to the condition of mag as recd by readers! Yes - horrified as i was the first mags you recd probably had fallen apart in the mails! Oh dear! But, they werent that badly made! Mr Eigner said his special issue was best translation of his intentions he had ever received; certainly no 4/5 onwards were nicely designed. Your reservations about the second series, dubbed THE EAR IN A WHEATFIELD, will be seen to be unworthy of you! We have a nice card back & front, strong staples, & if that falls to bits i will, what?, i will take out a life-sub to GONG! ... Interested in yr reaction to ES 10/11, expected your opinion on 12 & 13. So we come to australia ...

Its still very much a personal magazine of poetry, prose, reviews, & correspondences, but from an Australian base. i should say Melbourne base, there being a regretable absence of interchange between Sydney & Melbourne. The same distances & differences as in Canadian or American cities. What i am doing next year is linking Japanese, Australian, NZ & American, (& oh yes & my English, i mean British friends!) in a useful amalgamation upon the page. Spread over 4 issues. Its an attempt to influence editors & poets here to a wider meaning perspective. Theres no attempt at making a "movement". Its to state the equivalences that do exist in different communities of poetry - i agree with Peter Jay about Caterpillar, that certainly did become horribly predictable, but the first numbers, no lets say, the last numbers got increasingly smaller & pettier, very much a clique & not a community.

Re SA18 - Berge, Corman, Conran, & Sherman (who is he? liked his poem v. much); & Furnival, Monk, cartoon, the translations, Gordon, & gorgeous Perry drawing - i thank you for, the rest not. Believe me.

                  Best Wishes, Kris Hemensley.