Nevil Gibson

Red Spark, edited by George Fyson, published by VUW Socialist Club. No. 1 and 2. 25c.

The first thing one notices about Red Spark is its new-found professionalism. And in a magazine of its nature—by process of occasional birth and inevitable death it is now New Zealand's only revolutionary paper—this professionalism is welcome indeed. Although Red Spark is a product of the Victoria University Socialist Club, a club which in many forms has produced various radical papers at various times, it marks something which is not restricted to Victoria alone.

Its unashamedly student revolution oriented, and though New Zealand has had some share in this international phenomenon, it has not opted for the easy way by reprinting from overseas sources in the hope that the revolution will happen here through some process of metamorphosis. Mind you, local content in the first two issues of Red Spark have by no means taken the greater share. But it is there and I hope will grow as its writers, who are mainly students, increase their sophistication—something that cannot grow overnight. Another immediate observation is the amount of absorption the Victoria writers have achieved of current developments and their expression of it. To those looking from the outside socialist debate may at times appear a strange, bewildering thing. But to someone like myself who has been involved in it for many yars I can assure that its orientation is one which marks a new and more fruitful avenue of marxist discussion than has hitherto concerned most student radicals.

The difference in appearance of the second issue of Red Spark compared with the first marks not only a great development in design and appearance, but a significant increase in editorial confidence. While the first issue was largely a "line" issue where the student revolt, France, May 1968, prospects for revolution in New Zealand etc, were all there, the second issue contains more of topic interest and creates the impression that Red Spark will not be bogged down down by the dogma that has stricken so many marxist groups and revolutionaries.

Where Red Spark is freshest is its local articles. In No. 2 the best article is Chris Wainwright's, which concisely and comprehensively gives the case for workers control and self-management. This is a central issue on any struggle for socialist economy. But at its worst Red Spark falls to the old orthodoxy: facts are paraded out as sort of defence witnesses rather than being used to explain what is really happening—and here only the most docile, old and used ones are picked. Red Spark has opted for the Fourth International, a body with a doubtful and sticky past which, I feel, would be best to steer clear of without, of course, completely losing touch with their material and views.

Where the Fourth International makes its biggest mark on Red Spark is where it treats capitalism in the time-worn sense. Revolution is a too important and imperative thing today for it to be held back by explanations and justifications that are no longer relevant. Reworking and constant investigation into modern capitalism will need, I fear, more than the approach suggested by Ernest Mandel, the main theoretician of the Fourth International.

But such a criticism is alleviated by the relevance of the articles in Red Spark 2: the three books reviews cover topics of interest (Negro militancy, philosophy, and the Revolution) while Tariq Ali writes of the situation in his homeland, and Owen Hughes contributes further to the discussion on Pakistan and the attitude of Maoist China. Included in this is a revealing correspondence between Red Spark and the Communist People's Voice. Finally, the issue is rounded off by the first part of a new article on the Vieteong by Wilfred Burchett, an Australian who has more practical knowledge about the subject than any other English-speaking person.

Derek Melser

Argo 19, edited by David Harcourt and Max Kerr, published by VUW Students' Association. 20c.

In their editorial note the editors of Argot 19, David Harcourt and Max Kerr, declare that "with the aid of a grant from the Students' Association the format of the magazine has been improved considerably". This is untrue: apart from the illustrations the format of this Argot is as mediocre and unimaginative as it has always been—an electric typewriter, such as has been used in the past, was just one of the small mercies we had to go without.

The most accomplished poem in the issue was undoubtedly Gordon Challis's "The Black King"; in twenty-five plain and well-wrought lines of unobtrusive rhyme he conveys the majesty and mystery of the black ore. Considerably further down the aesthetic scale is the group comprising Dennis List, Sam Hunt, Jim Horgan, John de Courcy and Rhys Pasley. List's poems are largely nonsense but nave a certain satisfyingness and completion nevertheless One feels that he has proved, elegantly, an obscure theorem in a logic, or language known only to himself. Hunt's "Black Toadstools" was well written but the introspective, mildly psychotic theme does not seem his forte—not if you've heard him read his love poems. Horgan's images are vivid ("Ezra Pound inhales a urinous (sic) hundred years . . . And his mad kisses bite through to the bone.") but hardly informative. His "Wine Song" though, gets across well that swooning nausea which all wine takers-to-excess must know.

"Sleeping Mountain", by de Courcy, is a competent description, if not evocation, of a vague foreboding—symbolic of something perhaps, we are given no clue as to what it might be. The two poems by Pasley are good, in an unassuming, gently way, but what does "our bodies clapping" refer to? Does it not clash with the more explicit, but hardly more pleasant "I pitch upon your ocean flesh"?

Michael Neill's distinction between ponds and pools in "Ponds" escapes one, but his other poem, expressing the desire that ". . . astonishing contortions/Disturb my wife's welsh-flannelly/Unperfumed sleep is amusing. The long poem by Jenny Anderson I could not like or understand at all-Frederick C. Parmee's "Song for Christmas" seems to have been plagiarised directly from the group shouting scene in the musical Hair.

The best prose piece in the issue is Alan Roddick's slightly pretentious criticism of the three poems from Argot 18. Though one or two are wide of the mark his comments are generally true and interesting. He's right about how very good Sam Hunt's "Song about Her" is. The rest of the prose was badly written. Brian Dawkins sets himself a very small task—a rapid comedian from his title "Contemporary Writing: O Canada!"—but accomplishes, in poor, self-conscious prose, even less. Hows this for literary criticism: "All this is pretty negativistic on my part, so to inject a more positive tone, I will state categorically that the real Canadian novelist of today is in fact Hugh McLennan."

I have never listened to the music of the pop group called The Doors, nor was I in Miami when their lead singer Jim Morrison regaled his audience by "lewdly and lasciviously exposing his penis" but if his "deeply disturbing lyrics" are anything to go by ("Angels fight/Angels cry/Angels dance/and Angels die") then I must say I regret missing neither experience. Darien Frost asks "who cares how Jim Morrison behaves when he can give us lines like these: (those quoted)." We must ask "who cares about Jim Morrison at all?" The nonsenee-prose piece by Allen Marett seems to be a hoax, a successful attempt to 'have' th editors, and deserves no comment.

The five drawings in Argot 19 and the cover, by Jenny Anderson and Jenny Murray, were very decorative and good.