The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
* Contents derived from the Cumberland Park,Mitcham area,Adelaide - South / South East,Adelaide,South Australia,:Bethany Women's Centre,1990 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Candlei"And then went in to a pine room full of sun.",Jan Owen,
single work poetry
The poem is set in 1989, when 'szabadsag',(freedom) reached Hungary in the wake of Glasnost,and Russian troops are leaving. The narrator describes the room of a cultured and liberal schoolteacher doing a thesis on 'Contrapuntal Techniques' in Ezra Pound's 'Cantos.' Quotations from Pound and references to his chair (ie. his time) in Venice set up a delicate counterpoint between new freedom and ongoing culture in Hungary, Pound's WWII Fascism, and what is implied to be the enduring value of his poetry.