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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: There is law for fire, singing for fire, dancing for fire, fire-dreaming. You have been there. You have seen it. You know all the names of fire: signal fires, hunting fires, sleeping fires, fires for light,

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fires for cooking, for ceremonies, healing fires of eucalyptus leaves, fire as medicine, magic. Fire gave crow a voice, flying away in pain. Fire brings old quarrals to an end, on top of unidentified, do not drink at the rock hall of

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Wanampi unless you take fire or the snake will bite your spirit and draft will follow. Fire can protect you from the dead ones. You have been there. You have seen them. You know all this fire. The penis is fire, the vagina is fire, fire is inside

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the bodies of animals. The woman hands a fire stick to the boy and he becomes a man. There's a time for every fire. The fires of January are different from the fires of June. In the cold time, a small nudge before sleep will keep the flame alive all

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night. The right ash, the right heat, the right position of wind, June, and salt-bush, a technology of fire, the knowledge. You have been there. You have watched. You know all the seasons of fire. Hawk stop the bush-turkey throwing fire

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into the sea, fire cannot be stolen now. It lives everywhere. Inside the spin-effects in dry wood, all this is law. The smoking days. [unidentified] come every year. The air is full of smoke. The smoke comes first, then the fire and then the

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smoke. All this is law. Hot is more than two sticks rubbed together and no chopping, take only what you can drag, green wood for shelter, dead pieces [unidentified]. The wind from the mouth works kindling, fire makes grass seed, it finds the

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kangaroo and chases him to the hunters. All this is law. The burning off and the gathering together are one. You have been there. You have seen it. You know all the seasons of fire. Morton Marcus: And this is the Poetry Show. I'm your host Mort

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Marcus, with- Anita Wilkins: Anita Wilkins. Morton Marcus: Our co-host and we are here tonight to talk with a man who you just heard reading Billy Marshall-Stoneking,

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visiting us from Australia. You people who remember the marvelous visit that Billy led here. He was the organizer from it on the Australian side of the two Aboriginal chanters and painters and the other contemporary Australian poets.

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He is passing through our midst again and Anita and I have said, come on the Poetry Show and talk about your poetry, what's happened in Australia, and your new things. Welcome, Billy. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Hello, Anita and Mort.

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Morton Marcus: That's me, Mort, yes. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: I was thinking, well, I saw Joe Stroud there for a second, but of course, he's in the Sierras. Morton Marcus: We do look very much alike, I've said that.

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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Only on the radio, Mort. Morton Marcus: Welcome back, Billy. It's great to see you. For those people who don't know, Billy Marshall-Stoneking is actually American. Where are you from Billy?

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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Well, I was born in Orlando, Florida, but I lived all over the United States when I was growing up because my father was on the run from the law. Morton Marcus: Is that true? I know- that I didn't know.

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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: It's not true. Morton Marcus: Okay. I should know better by this time. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: He was in the airforce, so you know, three years here, three years there. We went from Florida to

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Birmingham, Alabama, from there to New York City. Then up to San Mateo, California. The first time I ever came to Santa Cruz was in 1954 when we came down on a day trip looking for Halfmoon Bay. We never found Halfmoon Bay, but we ended up at the

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Boardwalk, which was almost completely deserted at the time. They opened up the ferris wheel, not the ferris wheel, the merry-go-round for May, and I rode it. A solitary six year old and everyone said, "Grab for the ring, grab for the ring!" There

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was a ring that one had to reach out and grab as one passed it, but my arms weren't long enough to reach it. And in that way I was introduced to the art of poetry. Morton Marcus: Now, why was that the art of poetry? That's

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obviously a metaphorical statement, but it's too deep for me, Billy. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Well, I think that all writing or all creativity is sort of like reaching for something that's

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just beyond one's grasp all the time, you know? At least with me, I never finish anything. I mean, I try to, but in the end, one abandons one project in favor of something else in hopes that the work you've done will suffice.

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Morton Marcus: Well, as Billy says, that also I should add that Billy is the author of how many books now in prose and poetry and plays? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Six or seven?

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Morton Marcus: A history of the famous hunter, Lasseter, who hunted for- Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Lasseter's Lost Reef. Morton Marcus: Yes and what was he looking for again?

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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: He was looking for gold. Morton Marcus: Gold in the center of Australia. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Still out there somewhere. Only a few Aboriginal people know where it is. They go out every now and

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then, get a few nuggets and come back to [unidentified] springs and buy land cruisers. Morton Marcus: A fascinating book full of yarns and memoirs called, "Taking the Boy Out of the Man?" Man out of the boy?

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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: That's right, Joe. Morton Marcus: That's it. It's Joe's fault. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Taking America Out of the Boy. Morton Marcus: Oh, that's right.

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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Which was- Morton Marcus: Sounds so damn patriotic, I don't even want to admit it. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: It's okay. It was something that a

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Greek poet in Melbourne once said to me, Pi O, who is a city-born and bred Greek poet. And Pi used to loathe nature so much that if a wasp flew into the car as you're traveling down Swanston Street, Melbourne, which is like the main

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thoroughfare of a three and a half million population city, he would pound it with whatever it was available and say, "I hat nature, I hate nature." And t that time, I was living in t e country and he used to say, e used to call me the count

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y bumpkin and say, "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country ou of the boy." And so in the e d, I thought, well, that sounds like a good name for a book. ut I changed it slig

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Morton Marcus: Well, you lived for twenty-five years in Australia, and now you are on your way to a totally new life. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Just one or two words about that. And then we're

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gonna burrow into what happened to you in Australia. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Okay: here I. Morton Marcus: That's one or two words, thank you very much. I should have known better than this [unidentified]. Anita you

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should be sitting right here. He'd have much more respect for you. And anyway, he's on his way to Italy, does not know what his future is, but we're going to find out plenty about the past and the present, actually. Anita, why don't you start off

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the questions and we'll put the third degree line on him. Anita Wilkins: Okay, I'd like to know why you went to Australia and what year was that? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: I went to Australia in January 1972. I

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was much more immature then, than I- Anita Wilkins: Than you were later? Morton Marcus: Than he is right now. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: -than I thought I was at the time, and

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probably the same still applies, but from a different perspective. All the bumper stickers in Sacramento said, "America, love it or leave it." And it seemed like a good idea. I mean, it hadn't really occurred to me before, but I

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wasn't avoiding the draft or anything. My father had been in the service and had died of a service-connected disability and I was the sole surviving son, so I had a foray, I think they called it a deferment, but I just wanted a change of scenery,

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I suppose. And Sacramento was sort of a little bit like, I suppose Santa Cruz, in the sense that it's like a magnet. And people can get caught up in the life in a place like that and just stay there forever. And I didn't want that to happen and

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but I didn't want to go sort of to Nevada or Canada or anywhere close, and Australia turned out to be the place. Anita Wilkins: Was Australia then advertising for people to come as teachers? Did you-

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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Yeah, I was in the first group that went over. Anita Wilkins: Okay, I remember that. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: That's right. Yes and they posted me

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into a little high school. Lake Bolac High School about 130 mile west of Melbourne, out in the h art of sheep country. And boy, oh, boy, was that an educatio . Of course, the farmers ut there, the only thing th y knew was that I was coming f

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om the land of where women urned their bras, and guys wer tearing up their draft cards. And it didn't help that there w s a student strike the first ye r I was there, although it ad nothing to do with me. Not ing!

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Anita Wilkins: Of course. Did you have a ponytail then as you do now? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: No, I had very short hair and I wore a tie and a coat and I was paid $175 [cross talk] Well, yes, but

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I was a teacher, you know, I had standards. I had to- They paid me $175 a week. And I thought it was easy street, rent was $6 a week, three bedroom house, furnished. And I learned that when- I had to learn the language too.

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Anita Wilkins: Yes. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Because they would say things like, "Have you seen- have you met the tank?" And I didn't know what that meant, but they were referring to me. I was the tank,

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not because of my size, but because of the cockney-rhyming slang that was very much in use around rural areas, tank-yank. You know, you had to be careful not to step on a Joe BLake, snake. And if you had lunch, you'd go in and order a couple

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of dogs dead eyes, pies. And like everything was in rhyming slang and that was a bit unusual. Anita Wilkins: Well, so how did you get out of that situation? And I know you spent time with some of the tribal people.

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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Yeah, well, the first time I went north into Aboriginal Australia was just after two years and like, whoa, like I got a position teaching English up in Katherine in the top end of the Northern Territory, it's about

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220 miles south of Darwin, which is right at the top dead center, top center of the map of Australia. And I was only there for a year but during that time, I met a lot of the people that lived at [unidentified], among them, David Gulpilil, the boy

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that was in, "Walkabout," and David Blanasi, who plays didgeridoo and a lot of- well, you may have heard his didgeridoo-playing in some of Rolf Harris's songs, there was one that came out in the 60s called, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down,

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Sport," and then there in the background is David Blanasi, [immitating didgeridoo], playing didgeridoo and Johnny [unidentified] and a whole bunch of people, storytellers, musicians, dancers, tribal people. But I only was there for

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a year and I always felt when I went back to Victoria, that I had missed something. So the first chance I got, I went back. Morton Marcus: And where did you go when you say you went back? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Well, when I went back in 1979, I went

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to a place called Papunya boriginal Settlement, or just apunya, and it was about 275 ilometers west of Alice Springs ight in the center of ustralia. The people there were ery different from the people hat I've known up in the north.

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hese are a desert people, they ad different sorts of views on hings, they lived a very ifferent kind of lifestyle. ome of the people, many of the ld men that I know, could emember a time when there had een no white people, and they

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ad been living in the bush and ad seen their first white man t the age of 25, 30 years of ge. Morton Marcus: Now what about these old men? I mean, I know they just had a tremendous influence on you.

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Billy Marshall-Stoneking: A huge influence because I really think I learned just about everything I know, about storytelling anyway, from living with them, they have a transcendental view of reality. And it's not like some kind of philosophical

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construct that is layered on top of the lives; that is the way they are, the way they see things. There was one man in particular who I spent a lot of time with who is called Nosepeg. His real name, Aboriginal name, is Tjunkata Tjupurrula. But he

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got the name Nosepeg from some camel-drivers back in the 30s who found him or came across him out in the bush. And Nosepeg, he has a pierced septum and he had a stick or something through his nose and they said, "Oh, look at look at that bloke there. It's

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a, he got a nose peg." You know, just like the camels, you'd use nose pegs in camels, and these camel-drivers picked up on that. Well, Nosepeg heard the word "nose peg" and thought that that was the white fella named for him, so he just started using

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it. And he became legendary right across not only Australia, but really right around the world. Dignitaries, official representatives of governments, queens, presidents would come to Australia they would want to meet-

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Anita Wilkins: Why? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: They would want to meet an Aboriginal person and Nosepeg would always be the person that would end up getting himself invited because he spoke perfect English and he

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also had a tremendous sense of humor. When Queen Elizabeth came to Australia on her first visit, back in 19, I think it was 1954 or there abouts, and Nosepeg was flown down to Toowoomba, Queensland for the official ceremony, and he was led up the

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reception line and the aid to the Queen said to him, "My good man, I would like to introduce you to the Queen of England." And Nosepeg stuck out his hand and Queen Elizabeth took it and as they shook hands Nosepeg said, "Pleased to meet you. I'm

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Nosepeg, King of the Pintupi." No reply was recorded. Morton Marcus: Well, then the Queen has not been known for her repartee. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: But Nosepeg was quite a raconteur.

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He made his first movie with Lee Robinson in 1946 called, " Namatjira The Painter," and continued to make movies right up until he passed away in the early 90s. His last film that I know of was, "Quigley Down Under." He's the old man that

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sits around the campfire. He wasn't too impressed by Tom Selleck, from what I hear, but that's maybe best left to others to tell, not me because I wasn't there at the time. Anita Wilkins: The poem that you were reading at the beginning of

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the show is from a book called, "Singing the Snake." Maybe you could tell us how meeting these men and living among the tribal people led to this? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Well, I had gone to Papunya to set up

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what the education department was calling a Literature Production Center. And this was a center that had been created for collecting and printing stories in the local language. The people from Papunya and on its western outstations wanted

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their children to learn how to read. But the children were not speaking English as a first language, they were speaking Pintupi-Luritja. And so they were finding that the kids were- their reading education was being delayed until they were

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like ten or eleven or twelve years of age, until their oral English skills had- were advanced enough that they could take on English readers and reading in English. And they- it wasn't felt that this was good enough. And so I went to Papunya

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to set up a center to create an entire library of books and other materials in the local language so that those kids could begin reading at the time they entered school at the age of six. And so this involved me spending, literally, what turned

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out to be hours, hundreds of hours, maybe thousands of hours, really during the four years that I lived there, listening to stories and tape-recording stories, and also having to learn the language myself.

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And I would get to know some of the old men. One of the men that came all the time, to me was a man named Tutuma Tjapangati and his illustrations appear in this book of poetry, "Singing the Snake." Well, Tutuma was also a raconteur in his own way, he'd

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turn up and he'd want to do, and he'd want to do something to make money. He didn't care what it was. One day he turned up at the Papunya community store and said that he wanted chicken. And the store manager, a white fella by the name of Rob Novak, said,

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well, I'm not going to give you any more chickens, Tutuma. But if you do some work for me, I may be able to do some kind of trade. And so Tutuma said, "Okay, no problem. What do you want?" and Rob says, "I want the store painted. And here's the

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paint and here's the brushes and if you don't mind doing that, then we'll talk about me giving you some food." So, Tutuma went off and he was gone all day, you know, from, I suppose early in the morning, he would have turned up there when it opened,

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and along about four or five o'clock he comes back with empty paint tins and paint brushes and says," Right, I want my chickens." And Rob says, "Well, let me go have a look first at the job that you've done," and he went outside and Tutuma had

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painted the entire store alright, it was a great big cinderblock sort of store. But he hadn't painted the whole thing, he had painted traditional Aboriginal designs over the whole thing. He had like concentric circles and emu

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tracks and u-shaped symbols representing women sitting around campfires and other symbols for bush turkey, and it covered the entire wall, the back of the wall, the doors, the hot water heater out the back, he even included three blotches

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of seemingly meaningless, just blotches of paint, which Rob asked him, "What are these?" And Tutuma said, "Those are the three chickens you owe me." And he got the chickens. Later the Melbourne Age sent a reporter up to Papunya to do a story on

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human rights abuses on Aboriginal communities; and later I saw the story in the Age with a full page almost like half-page photograph of Tutuma's artwork with the caption, "Aboriginal Children Vandalize Local Property."

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Morton Marcus: But that was also a beginning wasn't it? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Well, no but Tutuma was right there at the beginning of what came to be known as the Papunya Tula painting or what maybe we know better as dot painting. And he

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was one of the very first people along with Shorty Lungarda(?), and Charlie Igo(?) and a whole bunch of other people that probably no one hears- heard of, apart from perhaps Clifford Possum. Those paintings they started doing as a result of the

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primary school art teachers' attempts to create interest among his students in art. And he was going to get them to paint a mural on the side of the school, this is back in 1972, and discovered that the old men wouldn't let the children paint

00:22:05.620 - 00:22:16.960

it. They were coming up taking the brushes off of them and doing the painting themselves. And so Jeff Barton, the art teacher, said, "Look, now wait a minute, this is for the kids to do." Look, here, you take this and take these and go away and

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he handed them bits of old masonite, bits of old fibro-cement that had been pulled off the houses, you know, and gave them a few bits of brushes and acrylic paints and send them on their way, thinking well, that's that. And they came

00:22:30.190 - 00:22:46.090

back the next day with these amazing dot paintings on these pieces of, well, just rubble from the- from the dilapidated houses. And that was how the painting started. And those early paintings, I mean, he was finding it difficult to sell

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them because they weren't, well, people that were buying Aboriginal art in those days thought of Aboriginal art as specifically bark painting, which had a kind of x-ray design and these were so completely different from that, that it was

00:23:01.270 - 00:23:17.440

very difficult in the early days to sell them. And they were lucky if Clifford Possum could get $100 for a canvas. Those same boards and canvases now are selling like $30- $40,000. Anita Wilkins: Were the two men who came with you on the tour

00:23:17.440 - 00:23:27.810

from that community? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Yeah, they were, but they are- they were- Papunya is a sort of a strange place because it was built by the Native Welfare branch of the Australian

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Government back in the mid 60s. And the only consideration for building it was, where can we find water? And it turned out that they could sink bores at Papunya and find all the water they needed, not too far down, and it seemed like it wouldn't

00:23:43.290 - 00:23:56.430

dry up in drought and so forth and so on. But it was the worst possible place culturally to build the settlement because it was on a border between about three different tribal groups, none of which traditionally had really liked each other very

00:23:56.430 - 00:24:14.310

much, or there certainly had been a lot of hostility for a long, long, long time further back when white people had been occupying the country. And so Papunya has always been, or up until about 1981, had always been a very difficult place to

00:24:14.310 - 00:24:35.130

manage because of this conflict. Danny Nolan Tjampitjinpa, and Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi, the two old men that came to Santa Cruz in '91 are Warlpiri, they come from north of Papunya. And the Warlpiri, they have said of the Warlpiri, and the Warlpiri

00:24:35.130 - 00:24:51.030

have also said this, that if the white fellas hadn't come the Warlpiri would own Australia by now, all of it, because they had this sort of view of well, they were imperialistically-minded people, and they didn't mind going into other people's

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territory and taking what they wanted, they were extremely aggressive. And Danny and Paddy come from that tribe and Papunya now is fairly much run by the Warlpiris. Now the Pintupi that were there before have gone back to their traditional homelands

00:25:07.800 - 00:25:24.930

in the West, which they were taken from in the mid 60s because of, well, there's various theories on that, but it seems that the government wanted to resettle them because they're, the British were testing nuclear weapons out in

00:25:24.930 - 00:25:38.310

that part of the country, and so they didn't want to have an incident. The government, to avoid an incident, they resettled hundreds and hundreds of nomadic people, many of whom had never had contact with whites. They brought them into

00:25:38.310 - 00:25:46.500

the settlement at Papunya. I've got a poem about that. Anita Wilkins: Good. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: If you- Anita Wilkins: Yes, I think we need to get a few more poems in

00:25:46.500 - 00:25:53.960

here. Even though your stories are wonderful, we need to hear the poems. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Well, this is what this is about that time and it's called:

00:25:53.960 - 00:26:13.080

ASSIMILATION: WESTERN DESERT (1962-1974), and it's an three parts. ONE. On the first night, all the people buried their tins of meat. It was the wrong color. It had been dead too long. On the

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second night, more tins. A few crazy people swallowed the meat. They were hungry, and the white fella smiled. Third night, the crazy people were still alive, so everyone started lining up for meat, a single file. Fourth night, a white fella showed all

00:26:35.310 - 00:26:54.210

those ladies and men the key on the bottom of the tin. On the fifth night, all the people were opening their own. On the sixth night, Titus took Matthew's meat by accident and had his head split open in a fight.

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TWO. Jack O'Mara says, before campaign shoes, before motorcar and Jesus, before missionary and baby-money, before mining company and police, before rifle and English, before guitar, before card games, before the Queen, before pens, pencils, and

00:27:20.010 - 00:27:39.120

comic books, before movies and Rock & Roll, before blankets, before grogs, cigarettes, pills, bandages, baked beans, telephones, chicken and soap, before doors and scissors, crowbars and tooth doctors, we ate [unidentified] berries and

00:27:39.120 - 00:28:00.300

kangaroo, bush turkey, [unidentified], witchetty grub, and [unidentified], happy, never yawning before the hunt. We dug cooking holes in the sand sitting back on our heels while our spirits stood straight up in our bodies. Now, all our names

00:28:00.300 - 00:28:21.750

are written down in books, and flour keeps the people, and tea and sugar keep the people, and everyone is living clothes to clothes. THREE. This boy learned how to read. This boy learned how to

00:28:21.750 - 00:28:52.920

write. This girl learned how to add. This person learned how to speak. This child learned how to count. This boy says ABCs up to Q. This child eats pencils, no breakfast. This girl says yes, sir, says no, sir. This one lost her book. This boy is

00:28:52.920 - 00:29:19.300

seventy-five percent. This child erases. These people have a word for this. One word, translated it means,"Oh me, how my spirit grows short." Morton Marcus: Billy, we are just about to come to the end of

00:29:19.300 - 00:29:32.980

this half-hour. Why don't you read us another one of these poems you want to read us. And then we take our break. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Okay, I'll read this book, "Singing the Snake," is coming out in a new edition, which is the fourth

00:29:32.980 - 00:29:45.850

printing of it. And there's about twelve new poems in the book and more drawings and so forth and so on and supposed to be available in America. But anyway, this is one of the new poems in the book, called:

00:29:45.850 - 00:30:10.280

AFTER WHITE FELLAS CAME The sun chases lizards, he captures birds, the father plays card games. The deck is cut, the son is twelve, a zebra finch screams in his hand. The ash is white. In camp, the father

00:30:10.280 - 00:30:32.150

dreams of falcons, trips to Alice Springs. The son cooks little chickens in his Billy can. He pretends he can't survive without them. The classrooms are empty. At the settlement's store, a tin of dog food sits in the heart of a

00:30:32.150 - 00:30:53.610

cardless man. The father stares at his hand. The son looks at his father. The wind blows, the game picks up its blankets, moves inside the humpy. Morton Marcus: We've been speaking with and we continue to

00:30:53.610 - 00:31:08.370

speak with our dear friend, Billy Marshall-Stoneking over from Australia on the way to a new life in Italy, and we will hear more of these marvelous poems and some of his plays which have made him world famous. Right now we will go

00:31:08.370 - 00:31:57.480

back to some of the chanting on this record we have. And this is the Poetry Show, we'll be back with Billy Marshall-Stoneking from Australia. You're listening to [unidentified] chanting of the [unidentified] Aborigines, but I

00:31:57.480 - 00:32:17.340

would like to make some public announcements. First of all, on this Tuesday, June 10th, Diane Davies will do a program, a dramatic program on the works of Lynn Luria Sukenick, well-known local Santa Cruz poet who passed away several years ago from

00:32:17.340 - 00:32:31.590

cancer and who is a great favorite of many people here, certainly Anita's and mine. A poet who is a marvelous poet and who in the last years of her life took to writing just marvelous short stories and was on the show many, many times.

00:32:33.150 - 00:32:49.560

Miss Davies is going around the country reading as Lynn and I would think that everyone will want to be at that event which will be this Tuesday night at 8pm at the Bookshop Santa Cruz. That's this Tuesday night 8pm at the Bookshop Santa Cruz. So

00:32:50.310 - 00:33:06.690

those who remember Lynn and loved her work, I think this is a great way to get back in touch with her. On Friday, that's June 13th at 7:30pm down in Carmel Thunderbird Bookstore, Jessica Ruby Simpson, poet, Martin Simpson, guitarist, and George

00:33:06.690 - 00:33:24.660

Loever will be presenting a reading at the Thunderbird Bookstore, again, 7:30 for that event. And our good friend who was on the show, Peter Gizzi, will read from his works at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Friends of the UCSC Library,

00:33:24.930 - 00:33:45.180

4pm, this Thursday, June 12th at the library's north patio. For more information on this, call 459-5870, that's 459-5870. Peter Gizzi, who has just moved here a year and a half ago, really is an assistant professor of literature UCSC and is

00:33:45.180 - 00:33:59.340

considered to be both an outstanding poet and poetry scholar. In 1994, he received the prestigious Lavan Younger Poets Award, given annually by the American Academy of Poets to a poet age 40 or younger. He has also twice received the Gertrude

00:33:59.340 - 00:34:19.140

Stein Award in Innovative North American Poetry, that's 1993, '94, and '95. His books include "Periplum" which he read from on this program, "Artificial Heart," which will be out in 1995, he'll read one or two of those. And he will bring out the

00:34:19.140 - 00:34:37.380

collected lectures of the very, very famous underground poet, Jack Spicer, in the spring of 1998. So that's Peter Gizzi this Thursday, at 4pm up the UCSC Library, everyone is welcome on June 12th at the library's north patio. They give a poetry

00:34:37.380 - 00:34:51.510

reading at the end of every year at their annual meeting, and just to keep that going, I would come there, but to get to know Peter and his work, I think that would be another real reason for going up there. We will now continue, as I press the magic

00:34:51.510 - 00:35:06.780

buttons here with my co-host Anita Wilkins, who was with me and Joe Stroud over in Australia where we first met Billy Marshall-Stoneking, and we're fascinated by him as I'm sure you are out there. He's a great storyteller, has had an

00:35:06.780 - 00:35:15.990

amazingly adventurous life, and that adventure still continues. Billy, we are with you and Papunya, and I know Anita wants to ask a question. Anita Wilkins: Yes because I'm sure that some of the people

00:35:15.990 - 00:35:28.350

listening have this question in their mind. And I know that it also is a big question in Australia in the literary scene, how a white person can presume to speak for the Aboriginal experience?

00:35:29.140 - 00:35:44.260

Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Yeah, it is something that has come up in Australia and in fact, there was an article in one of the magazines a couple of years ago. I think it might have been Meanjin, I can't remember for sure now, but sort of looking at

00:35:44.320 - 00:36:06.310

the poems in "Singing the Snake," and attacking me for presuming to be Aborigine or to have the inside information on the Aborigines. I don't suppose the person that wrote the article really read the poems very closely because one of the

00:36:06.310 - 00:36:24.790

things that I was very cognizant of during the time that I wrote all of these poems was that I was really exploring my own feelings about being in this place because it was such a completely different sort of place than anywhere I had ever

00:36:24.790 - 00:36:45.790

lived. And it was fraught with all sorts of weird conflicts and bizarre confrontations of worldviews and values and so forth and so on. I was not the only white person living there, there were other white people, too. Mechanics, people working

00:36:45.790 - 00:37:06.100

for the town housing company, plumbers, other school teachers, and so on. And the first time I ever came to Papunya and was taken around to where I would be living, the man that took me over was the vice-principal of the school. And he said, "Just a

00:37:06.100 - 00:37:24.550

friendly word of advice, mate, you know, like, don't let them in your house, whatever you do, because they're really nothing but a pack of dogs." And this was the vice-principal of the school. So one was constantly juggling all of these

00:37:24.550 - 00:37:41.470

conflicting sorts of ideas and value systems and the poems really to begin with were not ever- it was never my idea to make a book out of them. In fact, I didn't even know if I could write poems in a place like this. The first poem that I

00:37:41.470 - 00:37:57.310

wrote that I felt vaguely approached what- saying something about what I was feeling, was after I wrote- after about a year and a half of living there, and that was- didn't mean that was the first one I tried. I had tried to

00:37:57.310 - 00:38:18.490

write all along, but none of it worked because I wasn't really- I hadn't really arrived there myself. If you look at the poems, you'll see that they're not poems about me assuming the role of an Aboriginal person or putting myself in their shoes

00:38:18.490 - 00:38:36.580

and walking around and saying, this is what Aborigines think, this is what Aborigines feel. The closest that they ever get to that is if I record something that someone might have said to me, or if I describe something that I saw, but even in

00:38:36.580 - 00:38:54.730

situations like that, and with all of the poems that appeared in this book, they were read and re-read to the people in the community, particularly if a poem was about someone, that person would have to hear the poem. And if they didn't, if I

00:38:54.730 - 00:39:07.000

thought it was a funny poem, and they didn't laugh, or if I thought it was serious, and they burst out laughing, I either had to get rid of the poem or rewrite it, or go back to square one and start over again, whatever.

00:39:08.590 - 00:39:29.110

The best thing from my point of view that was ever said about this book happened one time when I was in Sydney with three painters. One of the painters, very well-known dot painter by the name of Mick Namarari was there. And I had gotten up at

00:39:29.110 - 00:39:45.430

this cafe to read the first time I'd ever read these poems in Sydney, in the company of tribal people. And I was a bit scared because the context was totally different from reading them in Papunya. Anyway, I read the poems and there was a wide

00:39:45.430 - 00:40:03.730

applause and so forth and so on. And I went back and I sat down, and as soon as I sat down, Mick got up and left the table. And I thought, oh, my goodness, this is his response to what I've done, you know? I didn't know what I had said that had put him

00:40:04.360 - 00:40:17.470

off-side. Anyway, he didn't come back and I had to go to the toilet. So, I got up and I headed up the back and I'm heading off the back of this cafe to find the toilet, Mick's coming, actually, he's coming back from the toilet; ah, that's

00:40:17.470 - 00:40:34.600

where he was. And as we passed each other in the corridor, he grabbed me by the collar very gently, like a sort of black Ancient Mariner, and said, in a whisper, because Mick very seldom ever spoke in anything other than a whisper, he said,

00:40:35.710 - 00:40:54.940

"When you were talking, I was happy." And he dropped the collar. And he went back to the table and I went out to the toilet. And it was sort of that confirmation of Mick's that made me feel that I could go on writing the poems and as long as

00:40:54.940 - 00:41:09.940

I proceeded in the manner which I had up to that time, and that's what happened. Morton Marcus: Since time is going on, and I could stay here- There are many adventures, which we're going to have to skip over

00:41:09.940 - 00:41:16.930

for a literary conversation. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Yes. Morton Marcus: But a connection to this is you suddenly start to write a play.

00:41:17.140 - 00:41:27.210

Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Yeah. Morton Marcus: And it is about Ezra Pound, but the connection is with the aborigines. Why don't you tell us about that? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: I don't know this at the time, but

00:41:27.210 - 00:41:43.290

I'm coming back from a screenwriter's- I'm at a screenwriters conference down in Victoria. And there's a guy there from England talking about drama. And I, anyway, I won't go into all that. But I get upset enough by what he's saying that

00:41:43.290 - 00:42:02.490

I leave. And I head back to the hotel room, it's about ten o'clock at night, 10:30 at night, small little town on the coast. And all in my head, I hear this voice saying, "A brackish tribulation." Just like that, "A brackish tribulation."

00:42:02.880 - 00:42:19.860

And I'm wondering what the hell is this. So, I get back to the hotel room, and I pull out a sheet of paper, and I just write it down on a piece of paper. And then suddenly, as soon as I write it down, I hear this next bit of it, and I write that line

00:42:19.860 - 00:42:36.030

down, and the next line and the next line and the next line. And by the time my roommate came back, which must have been at least an hour later, I've written like, I've covered the page, the back, along the margins, around in circles

00:42:36.030 - 00:42:52.350

everywhere, and what it turns out to be is the opening monologue of a play, but at this stage, I don't know it's a play. In fact, I don't even know who this voice is. But in the midst of me trying to work this out, I go back to Sydney, and I get a

00:42:52.350 - 00:43:07.080

phone call from a guy I have never met, but he knows my work, and he's ringing me up to ask me a question about the Aboriginal painting because he's writing a book and needs some information, and he knows I know a little bit about it. So, I give him the

00:43:07.080 - 00:43:25.860

information he wants, and he asks me, "What are you working on?" And I suddenly realized I'm working on a play, because it occurs to me, this voice I've been hearing is familiar. It is the voice of Ezra Pound who I had heard reading on the

00:43:25.860 - 00:43:38.910

Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio ten years earlier. And so just almost half jokingly, but sort of half seriously as well, I say to him, "I'm working on a play about Ezra Pound." To which he says, "Oh, how interesting. You know,

00:43:38.910 - 00:43:55.260

he wrote about the aborigines too?" And I said, "What?" And he said, "Yeah, look in the piece in Cantos." So I slammed the phone down and I went to the bookcase and I pulled out the Cantos and I found the piece in Cantos, and yes, there is Pound

00:43:55.410 - 00:44:15.510

talking about the Wandjina, who are they're really the lightning brothers, the rain spirits from the Kimberley Range, the Kimberley region of Western Australia. And he's talking about these beings in a way that rings true. And so suddenly, I

00:44:15.510 - 00:44:33.810

have this idea in my mind, what is the most signi- characteristic, the most characteristic attribute of the Wandjina, is the fact that these creatures, these men-like, humanoid-like, well, von Däniken said they look like spacemen.

00:44:34.200 - 00:44:52.170

They have these huge eyes and the sort of auras around their heads but they don't have mouths. None of them have mouths and I knew enough about Pound to remember, oh, yes, this was the guy that was locked away for thirteen years in an insane

00:44:52.170 - 00:45:10.590

asylum, and when he came out, he never spoke. Whole books have been written about it, Ezra Pound, the voice of silence. And so, I put the voice of silence and Pound's silence together with these mouthless Aboriginal beings, the Wandjina, and the

00:45:10.590 - 00:45:21.070

play came about called, "Sixteen Words for Water." You want to hear just a little bit of that soliloquy that I wrote in the hotel room? Morton Marcus: We'd love to Billy.

00:45:21.160 - 00:45:37.960

Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Okay, just a bit. This is the beginning, near the beginning of Act Two. He's come back, we've come back after the interval, and he's trying to type something and he becomes aware of the presence there in the

00:45:37.960 - 00:46:01.480

room. In fact, the fourth wall is a two way mirror. That's the what we have been led to believe in Act One, and he goes and he looks at the audience and he says: "What? Oh, you again? Can't get enough, eh? Enjoying the nut

00:46:01.480 - 00:46:29.380

house are we? Government by the peep-hole of the peep-hole for the peep-hole? A cage? The metap or too obvious, too alliterati e, didactic, humorless, tho gh useful on occasi n. Leaden diadem of a ban ing mentality. Life in the mo

00:46:29.380 - 00:46:57.040

key house, not such a good place for poetry, but no man has peren ial fortune. Slow foot or sw ft, death delays but for a sea on. Better to say Montana is in the air, big sky ceiling, a alk through deserted street of one's childhood home. The

00:46:57.580 - 00:47:30.130

oke is on me. How long have you een in? I see, you're not in. Th t's what they all say. You're not going anywhere though, are ou? Didn't think so. Ye , I understand, capiche, never the proposals that get in the way, only the stupid question

00:47:30.130 - 00:47:46.600

and inattention to answers the blind descent to speed the headlong rush into untried ruth because he said this, an she said that, so long as every hing is quick, so long as every hing is sweet, as if life cou d be conceived and born in a ni

00:47:46.630 - 00:48:12.760

ht's sleep, toddling by break ast, high school on the way to ork, college and a perfect mar iage by noon, old age for lunch nd a palsy decline in time for tea. Setting for an early hou the alarm clock by death, and h aven another sleep. So how is it

00:48:12.760 - 00:48:32.500

that men and women make it th ough another day with such velo ity, with so little determina ion, deliberation. Freedom is a wishbone caught up in the hand of a child who believes in agic and cannot speak, for sp aking does not make wishes h

00:48:33.580 - 00:48:59.440

ppen. What is closest to u must always remain a secret, an there is tragedy in this. Syntax cannot change thi room. Something more is requ red or something less. Cour ge, the rudimentary ingredient, etter to reflect the world

00:48:59.440 - 00:49:26.980

ithout a word than talk our elves to death. But make no mist ke, this is no theater of id as, only lucid dream. In ere, the passing show lacks he usual requisite action, but hould do in any case. The antici ation of a long journey is still

00:49:27.910 - 00:49:40.120

possible even when there is no Anita Wilkins: Yeah, that's really powerful. I see that it's written in lines. Is the whole play in verse or, I mean, how would you describe it?

00:49:40.390 - 00:49:57.340

Billy Marshall-Stoneking: No, only sections of it are as a poem, and sections of it are more like dialogue. But yeah, he sort of slips into this sort of poetics and- Anita Wilkins: And all this came to you mediumisticly?

00:49:57.000 - 00:50:08.910

Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Yeah, yeah, that came to me like I'm hearing this voice in my head, and I'm writing just down what it's telling me, only that bit. But then later I became very, very familiar with him. And we used to have these lovers

00:50:08.910 - 00:50:20.010

quarrels, it was unbelievable. When I was at the National Playwright's Conference in Canberra, I was barricaded into a room for two weeks. And we just ranted and raved at each other because I didn't know how to deal with his anti-semitism.

00:50:20.460 - 00:50:32.250

And I didn't want to make it a play about that but I knew I couldn't leave it out. But if I put it in just a little bit to say I've touched that base, hen it became tokenistic and it idn't work that way either. So e're having these huge

00:50:32.250 - 00:50:43.920

rguments about what I'm going o do about this confounded loody notion of yours. And he's creaming at me. And like, I on't know what the people were hinking going back and forth in he court or outside the room, ut they were bringing me coffee

00:50:43.920 - 00:50:55.020

nd things to eat and like, and ike looking at me ympathetically and saying, t'll be all right, it's okay, ou know. And by the time the hole thing was finished, it was ike, I come to the end of this arriage, which had lasted for

00:50:55.020 - 00:51:06.600

our years. And there was a part f me that felt very sorry to ee him go, but there was nother part that said, good iddance! Not really. Morton Marcus: Well, before you got involved with another dead

00:51:06.600 - 00:51:20.590

man, we'll go into what happened to this play then? Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Okay, this play went on at the National Playwright's Conference in Canberra, which is the national capital, in 1991. And I had no idea how it would be

00:51:20.590 - 00:51:39.760

received, really, but it received a moved reading, that is the actors who had been workshopping it with me, just in private sessions over two weeks - one day on, one day off, one day on - they got up on the last day, and they had a rudimentary

00:51:39.760 - 00:51:54.250

set and with scripts in hand, they acted the play out. And it's a terribly funny play in places, that soliloquy at the beginning of Act Two doesn't reflect that, but there's a lot of very funny things that happen. And when the first laugh

00:51:54.250 - 00:52:05.590

came near the beginning of Act One, I sort of rested a little bit easier, and then the next laugh came where I expected it and I rested a little bit easier. And then it went through the play and everything was working beautifully, except at

00:52:05.590 - 00:52:25.330

the end, which I hadn't counted on. And the end is, I can't have time to go into that. But the end is the same where he is released without a trial, but without the guilty, and the indictment of guilt for treason being lifted. And he makes one

00:52:25.330 - 00:52:39.520

final comment about the Wandjina and his position in the universe. And anyway, that was the end of the play and the light- and the people clap and the lights come up, and the director comes out and he takes a bow and he gestures up to me

00:52:39.520 - 00:52:56.980

at the back of the hall. There's about three-hundred-fifty people sitting there. Now I stand up just to sort of say thank you to the applause and everyone turns around and every face is streaming with tears, everybody is just weeping. And so the next

00:52:56.980 - 00:53:10.930

day I go back to Sydney and every theatre company in Australia is on the phone saying, "We want this play, let us have this play." They were like fighting each other. I ended up making enemies because certain people got it and other

00:53:10.930 - 00:53:26.020

people didn't. And so it was taken up by the Sydney Theatre Company, almost immediately a production in London, a company in London decided they wanted it. It opened in Sydney the following year, two weeks after the Sydney opening the London

00:53:26.920 - 00:53:39.820

production opened, and for a while, it was in both London and Sydney at the same time. And from there, it's gone to Melbourne, Perth, New Zealand, Tasmania, every place but America. No one in America seems to be interested at the moment,

00:53:39.820 - 00:53:49.600

although I have sent it to a few places. Morton Marcus: I think Billy Harris is just about to sign a contract here. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: But a radio version of this doesn't

00:53:49.600 - 00:53:58.120

exist. Anita Wilkins: I think we're getting a contract. You were here at the inception. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: If you want to do it, we have somebody.

00:53:58.120 - 00:54:11.530

Okay, do I hear five? Anita Wilkins: The KUSP auction I thought was over, but perhaps only beginning. Morton Marcus: Now this led to an even more far out mediumistic

00:54:12.040 - 00:54:28.500

relationship. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Mort, I was in a bookshop and people had told me that I had to write another play straightaway. But I resist that sort of paranoia because I don't think that's how

00:54:28.500 - 00:54:40.950

I work. I can't be cold-blooded about anything. So I just bided my time and one night I was in a secondhand bookshop in Sydney, down in the basement, and I was sort of vaguely in the film section, just sort of seeing what they had. And I'd reached

00:54:40.950 - 00:54:56.310

down to pull a book out from the bottom shelf, and as I did this, a book from somewhere above me, fell out of the shelf and fell down and hit me on the hand. And I picked up the book and it was a hardback copy of a thing called, " Que viva Mexico: The

00:54:56.310 - 00:55:10.650

Making and Unmaking of Sergei Eisenstein." Now, I mean, next to nothing about Sergei Eisenstein, except that he made a film called Battleship Potemkin, and had been sort of involved with montage and so forth and so on, but I knew next

00:55:10.650 - 00:55:27.810

to nothing about him. But the book was the letters basically, or the book was the letters, between Eisenstein and an American socialist novelist named Upton Sinclair, who ran for governor in California in about 1932 or '33 or something.

00:55:28.200 - 00:55:41.220

Anyway, I knew Sinclair because as a boy, I'd read his books on Sacco and Vanzetti and The Jungle and various things, but there's no way of finding out anything about Upton Sinclair in Australia. So I write to Mort, here in Santa Cruz, and I said,

00:55:41.220 - 00:55:56.010

Mort, find me whatever you can on Upton Sinclair, and bless his heart, he went everywhere, found me books, if he couldn't get the book, he'd photocopy, send me the photocopies. And the more I read, the more I loved Upton Sinclair, and I thought, I can't

00:55:56.010 - 00:56:09.270

write a play about this man. He's a prude. He's too damn prim, there's something wrong with him. Anyway, but then I started realizing that, wait a minute, hang on, there's something else here, this Eisenstein guy. So I started

00:56:09.270 - 00:56:23.790

looking into Eisenstein. Now he was a very hidden person, he's a voluptuary, but very, very hidden. And so I started courting him very carefully at first obliquely out of the sight of my eye as it were. And slowly he came a little bit closer and

00:56:23.790 - 00:56:36.570

a little bit closer until I could begin to have some kind of rudimentary conversations with him. And the more we then talked, the more and more I realized, this is not a play about Upton Sinclair. It is a play about Eisenstein in Mexico

00:56:36.780 - 00:56:51.270

in 1931, '32, trying to make a film, which has been bankrolled by a socialist and his millionaire wife. And that's the play called, "Eisenstein in Mexico." Morton Marcus: Can you read us just a little bit of it because

00:56:51.270 - 00:56:59.830

we have to leave here. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: There's a bit of a monologue of Eisenstein. The two Russians that are with him want to go back. "We've been away too long. What are you doing?" And

00:56:59.830 - 00:57:12.490

Eisenstein says he can't go back because he hasn't discovered what the film is yet. And he can't finish it till he discovers what it is, and the film has to tell him, he can't tell the film. And so Alexander, his assistant says, "All the

00:57:12.490 - 00:57:26.110

time, you're never satisfied, always you want the more and more and more and more!" And Eisenstein says, "Yes, more, much more, because it is too easy to give up too soon. So many do, so many who are praised. The world is full of

00:57:26.110 - 00:57:43.390

them. They make a parade of weakness because it answers this one's prejudice and that ones need, as if a dash of red paint could save the day. But if one looks, if one dare look, there is nothing for the heart, only sound and effects and

00:57:43.390 - 00:57:59.620

counterfeit anguish which the galleries enshrine and the critics applaud, as if ambition were worth the death we all must find. The task of mediocrity is never short of hands, my friend, nor is there bravery and carelessness. Do you really

00:57:59.620 - 00:58:16.840

think we have left Russia behind? No, Russia is our mother. She is the one who nurtured us. It is because of her that I can see where I am. And maybe if I have the skill, I can show Russia something of what I have seen, and Russia

00:58:16.840 - 00:58:34.450

herself will be richer for it. One reaches down into the abyss and takes hold of an idea. If you're strong enough, then you must do what you can to reveal it. There is no place in a revolution for faint-heartedness. A revolution

00:58:34.450 - 00:58:54.070

must build courage, so that people will dare to become. I am talking about the world. If the revolution is true, we must find ways of taking it to the world." And he says, his cameraman says, "And if it breaks your heart?" And Eisenstein says, "It is the

00:58:54.070 - 00:59:06.970

broken hearts that make all the difference, Edward." Morton Marcus: And thank you so much, Billy. Great to hear you. I mean, we wish we could have you every week. Anita, thanks so much. It was really great have you here.

00:59:06.970 - 00:59:11.470

Anita Wilkins: It's wonderful to be here. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Good to see you too, Anita. Anita Wilkins: Thank you so much, Billy. Billy Marshall-Stoneking: Okay, thanks.

00:59:12.500 - 00:59:24.710

Morton Marcus: This is Mort Marcus. This is the Poetry Show. Anita will be back, I'll be back in weeks to come, alas, Billy will not. But right now you have a grand chance to hear Billy Harris's "Book Before Bedtime." Tonight Mary Kay Gamel,

00:59:24.710 - 00:59:36.440

professor of classics and theatre arts will read short pieces from the works of Amber Bell. This is Mort Marcus, bringing you back to some chants here and here we go.