the bridge is crossed at last

This is not indicative of her most interesting work, but a big welcome to the blogosphere is due to Kerryn Goldsworthy, Australian academic and writer, blogging at A Fugitive Phenomenon. What she doesn't know about Australian literature isn't worth blogging about. I hope this is the beginning of something big in Australian blogging as our lit specialists get their online feet wet. Then I can retire to my new blog at The Weblog Repository and observe them getting down and dirty with new media.

Please check out the whole blog while I attempt to answer her somewhat challenging antipodean meme with as few gaps as possible.

1) Which Australian poem are you most confident you could recite from memory?

Dame Mary Gilmore's 'Nationality'(only 8 lines long) - and dribs and drabs of C.J.Dennis' 'The Play'.

2) Which of the Seven Little Australians are you?

Pip, I reckon. (Sometimes Baby, when things go seriously wrong).

3) Which is your favourite Patrick White novel?

No favourites yet, as I'm not through with Mr. White. Started and abandoned about three to date - finished The Tree of Man. Ask my daughter, she reads all the White in this house. Short White is fine  though - he writes a mean story.

4) Which is the best Patrick White novel?

Haven't read enough to give this a burl. Any takers out there in litblog land?

5) Which Australian fictional/dramatic/poetic character do you fancy most?

Ern Malley - today he would have received a writer's grant and medical attention. My ideal working class, fantasy man.

6) And which do you identify with most?

It's a toss-up today between Eilishe (Criena Rohan's Down by the Dockside) and Athena in The Children's Bach (Helen Garner).

7) If you had to read five Australian poems to a heterogeneous unknown audience, which five would you choose?

'At Sandalwood', and 'Country Children'- Randolph Stow

'Twins' - Gwen Harwood

'Suburban Song' - Elizabeth Riddell

'The House of God' - A.D Hope

8) Which five Australian books would you take to a desert island?

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony - Henry Handel Richardson

The White Thorn Tree - Frank Dalby Davison

A.D. Hope, Selected Poems

Bruce Chatwin, Songlines (it's ABOUT Australia among other things)

Barry Hill, Broken Song:Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession

9) If you were a guest at Don’s Party, would you be

(a) naked in the pool
(b) upstairs having sex
(c) outside having sex
(d) sulking with a headache
(e) huddled round the TV
(f) crying
(g) more than one of the above (please specify)
(h) other (please specify)

I'm sorry, Kerryn, but I would have been in bed after handing out DLP tickets all day - in other words, I was too young, stupid and impressionable for Don's Party!  (thanks to the Google Fairy for this link!)But if they had it now, I'd definitely be in the TV huddle.

10) Tim Winton or Christos Tsiolkas?

Both.

11) Banjo Paterson or Henry Lawson?

Henry.

12) Henry Lawson or Barbara Baynton?
Barbara, definitely. Though Brian Matthew's Louisa does gives us a Bayntonesque picture of what Henry drew on for the Drover's Wife.

13) Was Helen Demidenko guilty, and if so of what?

I heard she was a plagiarist. Whether or not she wrote an anti-Semitic book is open to negotiation. She also impersonated a Ukrainian immigrant. In other words, she crossed a few lines and 'rattled some cages'.

14) What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen at a writers’ festival?

When I went to hear Germaine Greer speak several years ago at the Melbourne Town Hall, I went around the wrong side of the hall (up Little Collins Street) and accidentally queue-jumped a queue that went way up Collins Street on the other side. I didn't find out until I was seated that I had inadvertently pushed in to a very crowded and popular event. But nobody else saw me. I hope.