Getting it Right (Heat 10, New series, 2005) - edited by Ivor Indyk

Aunty B got me a magazine (which is actually a bound book) on sale; one of those arty little anthologies of local writers - with short fiction, poetry and essay - called 'Heat 10 - Getting it Right'. Published for the Writing and Social Research Group at the university of western sydney.

Judging a book by its cover
Before I talk about the contents I must confess that I always find these things a little bit daunting - a little bit in-house and cosed door. The way this book is graphically designed is a bit off-putting, there's no easy to find by-line that helps you to figure out exactly what the thing is that you're holding in your hand. For example if it just said on the cover 'short fiction and non-fiction by Sydney writers Summer 2005' you would actually know what it was. As it is the title 'getting it right' implies to the lay reader that there is an actual theme, or some overarching question that this collection is addressing - but that doesn't seem to be the case. You don't know what the magazine *is* or who puts it together, or what it's focus is until after you've squirreled away in the inside first pages and pieced together a bit of a jigsaw. So I guess my general coment there is - hello, people, if you want to share what you do with more people, don't scare them away with cryptic cover art and maybe invest in a catchy para on the back cover that talks up what your publication is (how about 'Heat is an annual magazine showcasing edgy and provocative writers from Western Sydney who explore contemporary social issues... ' or whatev).

It's what's on the inside that counts
Anyways. I did the flick and dip style holiday couch and cup of tea read, and very much enjoyed the following:
- A short description of and some reproductions of Angela Brennan's beautiful text paintings .
- A longer piece called 'Badly hurt and beautifully loved' by Peter Kirkpatrick on John Laws (yes that John Laws, and the title is actually one of Johns') and the poetry he has written and published. It looks at Laws' views of masculinity and sensitivity, of romantic love and of his slightly inconsistent contempt for that high fandangled booklearnin'. It is a serious review and cultural analysis but with a strongly bemused tone, as it is fairly clear that, in a nutshell, the writer thinks his poetry sucks, big time. I would rewrite some of John's verse here but I really can't bear to as it is pretty awful.
- A short story called 'the dark wet' about a girl travelling in India, by Jess Huon
- A poem I liked about tequila versus wine by Anna Jackson because it was all very topical what with the silly season silliness and a few hangovers on my mind. Here it is (and if you like it she has a new book out which you can read about here):

A beautiful theory isn't a poem, James

I still haven't written a duck poem although
the duck was good, what can I say, was so

good, but now it is more like three weeks later
that I am once again leaving an elevator

with James, and I have a theory I want to unfold
to him about tequila and wine: how wine will hold

the moment open in all its ripeness and let you sit
in the present tense for an evening, but tequila, it

is like a terrible vortex drink, that tries to pull
all the future and all the past into the swirl

of the moment you drink it in, and there you are
trying to relive some other night at another bar

on someone else's lap and James is referring to that
conversation you've never even had with him yet

about Diana's apples and the next morning, your
hangover is not at all the wistful melancholic despair

for the future and regret for the past that wine
induces, but an unrelenting present tense return

to precisely the moment you were trying to swill
yourself out of, a moment all the worse for being full

of you, and what you did. So, I get out of the elevator
three days after the tequila night, reborn as a stater

of tequila theory, and now James is waiting for me
to put it all into a poem. But a beautiful theory

isn't a poem, James. A beautiful theory is only
a theory.