Monday, 01 August 2005
A Child's Christmas in Warrnambool
One Christmas was so like another in those years around the sea town corner now that I can never remember whether it was 106 degrees in 1953 or whether it was 103 degrees in 1956.
Oh, the Christmases roll into one down the wave-roaring salt-squinting years of yesterboy. My hand goes into the fridge of imperishable memory and out come ... salads and sunburn lotions and a brief exuberant hiss of beer being opened and the laugh of wet-haired youths around a Zephyr Six. The smell of insect repellent and eucalyptus and the distant constant slowly listless bang of the fly wire door.
And resting on a formica altar waiting for 'ron: the biggest pav in the world, a magic pav, a cut-and-come-again pav for all the children in all the towns across the wide brown bee-humming, trout-fit, sheep-rich, two-horse country.
And the aunts, always the aunts. In the kitchen, on the black and white photographed beach of the past playing out the rope to a shared childhood caught in the undertow and drifting.
And some numerous uncles, wondering occasionally why they weren't each other, coming around the letterbox to an attacking field in a test match and then driven handsomely by some middle order nephew, skipping down the vowel-flattening pitch and putting the ball into the tent flaps on the first bounce of puberty.
Dylan Thompson
(Really John Clarke, from The Complete Book of Australian Verse)
22:06 Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
Comments
For the real thing, and to hear Dylan Thomas recite it, go to: www.undermilkwood.net/prose_christmas.html
Posted by: waylaid | Monday, 01 August 2005
So the poet is/was John Clarke, but he signed it Dylan Thompson and modelled it on Under Milkwood?
Did I understand that?
.
Posted by: Mark Griffith | Monday, 08 August 2005
Well, John Clarke is a writer and comedian here in Australia (he's actually from New Zealand, but don't let that distract you). The conceit of the Complete Book of Australian Verse (and it's revised version, The Even More Complete Book of Australian Verse) is that all the great poetry was actually written in Australia, and deals with Australian themes in an Australian vernacular (but, of course, in the style of the actual author). Then he reworks their name to make it typically Australian. So Thomas become Thompson which can then become the common derivative Thommo. Hilarious. But possibly untranslatable.
So for example, in this stanza: "And resting on a formica altar waiting for 'ron: the biggest pav in the world, a magic pav, a cut-and-come-again pav for all the children in all the towns across the wide brown bee-humming, trout-fit, sheep-rich, two-horse country" note the following elements:
formica alter: Formica may have been ubiquitious in the western world in the 50s, but to an Australian it's going to be particulary reminscent of their family's beach shack.
waiting for 'ron: we'll be having it later on.
pav: Pavlova, a meginguey confection and an Australian (or New Zealand - it depends whether you're talking to an Australian or a New Zealander) invention. Named after Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova.
a magic pav, a cut-and-come-again pav: Probably every Australian child has read The Magic Pudding, (see pic below on right), the tale of a very grumpy pudding and a very dapper Koala. The pudding was magic, and if you cut off a slice it simply reconstituted itself and was whole again. Hence, you cut and came again.
The beauty of John Clarke to me is that he actually is a great poet all by himself, and he writes his spoofs with great affection and admiration. A Child's Christmas in Warrnambool (which by the way is a small beach town in Southern Victoria - http://www.warrnamboolinfo.com.au/) is at once beautifully evocative of the Australian Christmas holidays and filled with respect for Thomas. And the beauty of it is that, while Warrnambool may be a thousand times lighter and less depressing, it somehow isn't dissimilar from Swansea in South Wales, where Thomas grew up, where I once lived for a short time, and where I assume the original poem was set.
Sorry I can't do links on this blogmaker - a crucial element is missing.
Hope that helps Griffo.
Posted by: waylaid | Wednesday, 10 August 2005
Post a comment