Philip Hodgins (1959–1995)

I've just read an essay by Clive James "The Meaning of Recognition", primarily concerned with Philip Hodgins and his poetry. Clive James writes that " The Philip Hodgins Memorial is the biggest single honour with which an Australian writer can be graced, and it is because of the stature of Philip Hodgins himself." I had never heard of Hodgins before but he's definitely worth reading.(so are Clive James' essays). In "Dispossessed" Hodgins tells the sad truth about how losing a battle can breed narrow minds. Clive James also writes that Hodgins could have been Goethe had he lived long enough.

some extracts of Hodgins' works:

"I gazed at this miniature apocalypse
of countless termites writhing in exposure,
no doubt programmed to crave the opposite
of Goethe, who had cried 'More light! More Light!'
and as the seconds dropped away as small
and uniform as termites a feeling burrowed
into me as bad as if I had cancer"

and

"and it was not easy to notice that black snake
sunning itself on top of some worn-out tyres
until it melted off quickly like boiling rubber
and flowed through a stretch of dry grass
with the sound of the grass beginning to burn"

and

"and there is the sound of a quarrel
beneath you.
Most of it is muffled and deep-throated
but there is also a top register
of small sharp stones
pinging off the metal as they shoot up.
You don't get this variety with a sealed surface"

and

"It's always a blow to lose a cow that way-
squeezed to death from the inside,
hugely rounded with legs jutting everywhere
like some washed-up unexploded mine."

and

"I am attached
to a dark
bag of blood
leaking near me

I have time
to choose the words
I am likely to need

At twenty-four
there are many words
and this one is death"







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