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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2708 ..
MR MOORE (continuing):
A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.
They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.
Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity
Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: 'We live' but 'we survive',
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.
Turning to Standardisation, I think there is a great message in there for some of the journalists who write about what we do. I am just going to quote the first stanza, but it does show his ability to criticise:
When, darkly brooding on this Modern Age,
the journalist with his marketable woes
fills up once more the inevitable page
of fatuous, flatulent, Sunday-paper prose;
Mr Speaker, I think that we must remember him for his achievements as well as for his wit and for his personality.
Ms Carnell: And insight.
MR MOORE: And insight.
MS TUCKER: AD Hope was one of the great Australian poets of the 20th century. He was still writing and publishing in his 80s and a new edition of his selected poetry and prose, edited by David Brooks, came out just a few months ago.
AD Hope was born on 21 July 1907, the same year as WH Auden, in Cooma. He was educated at Sydney and Oxford universities, where he was awarded third class honours, which would be of comfort to us all, and was inspired by the teaching of CS Lewis and Tolkein. AD Hope lectured at the University of Melbourne from 1945 to 1950 and then moved to Canberra, where he was professor of English at Canberra University College. In 1960, Hope was appointed foundation professor of English at the ANU, where he was one of the first people to teach Australian literature as a full university course.
AD Hope made a substantial contribution to Australian literature and English language culture worldwide. He played Anthony Inkwell on the ABC radio children's program Argonauts, and was a school teacher around the same time as his second book, Poems, was published in 1960 to worldwide critical acclaim.
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