As a general rule, poets don't have much time for administration and its discontents and Alan Wearne, the award winning author of among other narrative poems, The Nightmarkets and The Lovemakers, runs pretty much true to poetic form. Referring to the mission statement of his brain child, Grand Parade Poets, he concedes parenthetically that 'mission statement' is a 'dreadful term', but quotes it anyway. It is characteristically uncompromising, vibrant and witty:
'Poetry for Grand Parade Poets is the imaginative use of language under pressure for the enjoyment of both others and yourself, and as such we believe there are plenty of readers who don't wish that contemporary Australian Literature, let alone its Poetry, be turned into a sideshow booth at some 365 Day Writer's Festival, or a dingy, cramped branch office of Cultural Studies.
'It is too serious an occupation to be beholden to such ephemera, though with a wonderful perversity there is no section of the arts better suited to not taking itself too seriously. For poetry can and indeed must be both elitist and democratic, with this wonderful combination being able to bring high-powered imaginative entertainment and intellectual pleasure to those willing enough to meet it at least part of the way. Our aim being to publish poets of music, passion and wit/intelligence, we trust you enjoy the results.'
As a poetry publisher, Grand Parade Poets lives up to its promises: it is passionate, witty, serious, individual, and it is enlivened by Wearne's own commitment to his art, his benign eccentricity and inexhaustible energy. As he explains, the venture had a daring start:
'After the death of University of Wollongong poet Benjamin Frater in 2007 many of us felt the need to see this wonderful and unique writer out there in book form ... He was not well known throughout Australia and so the best way to publish him would be to start up our own company. I was able to kick start it with money from an inheritance [about the cost of a second car] and in 2011 we commenced publishing with both Benjamin's Selected Poems and a volume from the exuberant and witty Pete Spence. The company has now published 13 volumes.'
One of these volumes and the most recent is Robert Harris' The Gang of One: Selected Poems, which ranges through Harris' five published books and includes a number of uncollected poems. Early work grows from his occasionally lonely, knockabout