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Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 40 No. 6. April 4 1977

In Which a Reference is Made to Gerard Couper's there you go—Bringing Class into it Again.'

In Which a Reference is Made to Gerard Couper's there you go—Bringing Class into it Again.'

Drawing of Wellington city with buildings resembling file cabinets by Chris Wilson '77

In our Middle Class Institution believing that, good or bad, only we have the advantage of Education . . . seems to be a bit of a half-truth.

Education, I also worked during Christmas and before, and I was learning something; and from outside of that institution, I had the idea that education equals becoming familiar with something, and seeing its consistency. . . if it's familiarity with literature, or history, it has a bit of a disadvantage in being experience-third-hand.

If it's working in a bank, the limitation is that it's man-made consistency, not much inspiration from anything else.

Working as a carpenter, the ways of the world are mirrored by wood wanting to split a bit of healthy doubt about the next move, you could call it empiricism. But nobody wants to listen to a carpenter, which is where perhaps university education has the advantage, it gives you power to influence—be a teacher.

But the Quiet American of Graham Greene's novel was also a university product—used his influence to blow up Vietnamese, thought he was a saviour.

So: Healthy carpenter's doubt; misguided idealism; and Negativity. So much Negativity! Electric cool aid acid test, Why the Fuck Should I Work if I Don't Want To? Throw the baby out with the bathwater; throw out the body-touching of the gay-gordans with the rigidity of the Formal Occasion. Do nothing. Make a consistent circle in your head.

Or maybe; go to university, get your experience from a certified dealer, in a nice cardboard box.

It's been handled a bit when you get it though.

Here's a bit of Marc Chagall (a Russian artist) remembering, back in 1919, a bit of the same thing:

"All those house-painters, the old bearded ones and their apprentices alike, began to copy my cows and my horses.

And on October 25th, my multicoloured animals swung all over the town, swollen with revolution.

The workers marched up singing the International

When I saw them smile, I was sure they understood me.

The leaders, the Communists, seemed less gratified.

Why is the cow green and why is the horse flying through the sky, why?

What's the connection with Marx and Lenin?

and a poem by Norman MacCaig, a Scotsman. . .

Old Maps and New.

There are spaces

where infringements are possible.

There are notices that say:

Trespassers will be welcome.

Pity leaks through the roof of
the Labour Exchange.

In the Leader's pocket,
wrapped in the plans for the great offensive,
are sweets for the children
and a crumpled letter.

There are spaces still to be filled
before the map is completed—
though these days it's only
in the explored territories
that men write, sadly,
Here live monsters.

—Chris Wilson.

and while the voices spoke
of hope and freedom,
the Little Mother of the Earth
saw the junkies and the losers retreating
painfully into a purgatory policed by H. Sapiens, Esq.
into ostracism and condemnation,
afraid to attempt a return;
the wall of hostility

and while the voices spoke
of love and brotherhood,
the Little Mother of the Earth
saw balloon-bellied children, with eyes made old
by a premature overdose of death and unshed tears,
while blackmarketeers pedalled milk-biscuit consciences
and the Pope advertised his private art-collection
before illiterate millions.

and while the death-squads
marched with hammers and axes into the woods
and chopped little old ladies into matchsticks,
while right-thinking cops
killed a few niggers for a bit of a laugh
the Little Mother of the Earth thought that here was
a kid
she'd have aborted if she'd known
of its monstrous deformities. . .
and she thought then
of a memo received that morning:
"Serious shortage of poppies, milk-biscuits,
old ladies and live niggers. Have run out of room
at Dimbaza."

Rire Scotney

Barefoot Poem.
Why
am i regarded with such
Suspicion?
Do i look
like a baby-basher?
a blackmailer?
or (Most Dreadful)
a student?!!!
i suppose it wouldn't simply be
that in order to avoid aggravating an extremely throbby
sort of blister,
i am forced to walk
through town
(to be said in a whisper)
barefoot?

Rire Scotney