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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 37, No. 10. May 22, 1974

Poetry fans.......

Poetry fans........

Dear Sir,

There's been this thing worrying me over the past few months — namely: is your paper meant to represent the general student mob on campus, or is it a voice for radical political ideas, etc? It's just that there are some things happening around this university which could be helped/stopped/ or otherwise by getting publicity in Salient, only experience has shown that no amount of pushing can get you guys to show any interest above political expediency (or otherwise).

Sure, the politics has its place in a student newspaper, but I have noticed that with increasingly monotonous regularity your political articles have been seeping into the spaces previously set aside for such things as the arts, music and film reviews, and more particularly the poetry section (inside information tells me that the latter is the last section to be considered before each copy goes to press). Even though it mightn't be your ideal cup of tea, there are plenty of us who would rather read poetry written by fellow students, and articles directly related to campus life and problems. If you could only realise the important role you could play in breaking down the growing impersonallsa-tion of the University.....

Thank god you still seem to enjoy the letters to the editor.

Poetry Fan

[There's been this thing worrying me over the past few months — namely the poetry fans who think I've got it in for them, and go bleating to each other and in their letters like a lot of poor lost Solzhenitsyns. Let's get this straight: I am quite prepared to print poetry ana other creative writing, I have done in the past and will continue to do so. But there's this thing called standards, you see, and I'm here to try and keep them up. Most of the poetry we've been getting has been junk. Sensitive, sincere, and very pretty, but still junk. We've printed some of it and the response has confirmed my own opinion — for every person saying its been good we've had ten who have been unimpressed, if not disappointed. So its not my own opinion. If you want to read about the moon in june and the breeze rustling the leaves on the trees you'll waste your time hunting for it in Salient. And you're hardly likely to twist my arm by telling me you're sick of politics and want to seek refuge in the lyrical lines of mute campus Millons. I'll only accept the implicit criticism and try to produce better political articles.

As far as your saying political articles have been 'seeping into the spaces previously set aside 'for culture, I have only one reply — 'bullshit'. I have never denied space to reviews, etc, in favour of more directly political articles, and never will. If they have dropped off, which I doubt, then its because people haven't been writing them, despite my encouragement.

You say 'no amount of pushing can get you guys to show any interest above political expediency' — bullshit again. We are acutely aware of what you call the growing impersonalisation of the university' — we've got a few other names for it as well and I am prepared to fill 16 pages out of 16 or 20 out of 20 if only you wankers will write it. Write it! — Ed.]