SCRIPSI

As there are no images of Scripsi on the net this picture is a scan of my own copy of the April 1985 issue

I thought I'd counter my grouchy mumblings about Australian publications in my last entry by talking about one of the world's greatest literary journals that so happened to be Australian.

Occasionally you have in your possession an object that is more precious than money, and my copy of Scripsi is one of those objects. It contains the work of some of today's most influential writers and thinkers, and is beautiful – Bill Henson's black and white photographs are dotted throughout its pages: the stunning street portraits he was famous for before the media clusterfuck over his nudes. And it's hugely special to me personally because it's on indefinite loan from one of the contributors.

Scripsi began in 1981 when Michael Heyward, Penny Hueston – who are now married and run Melbourne-based independent publishing house Text – and Peter Craven were in their early twenties and studying at Melbourne Uni. It began as fun; a way to publish the work of their friends and a reason to have parties. It became one of the world's most important literary journals of the time and ran as a quarterly until 1994.

Scripsi's regular contributors included Susan Sontag, David Malouf, John Forbes, Peter Craven, Les Murray, John Ashbury, Salmon Rushdie, John Tranter and Henson, many of whom were a part of the social coterie surrounding the magazine. For it is the product of one of those weird collections of prodigious peers – like the editors of OZ Magazine or the Heidi artists – whose artistic activities feel important in the moment and in hindsight are seminal.

I like that it publishes the work of friends, and that it discusses the work too – extensive reviews about the poetry of one contemporary sits beside a short-story by the reviewer, who is later reviewed by the poet. I like this dialogue about each other's work, I don't know if we are that (interested?) immersed in our friends' artistic trajectories anymore.

And don't get weird about the friends thing. You can do whatever you want when you start your own magazine and you will publish the work of your friends if they are geniuses. But that's all by the by. Scripsi is committed to the best work, whoever authored it. So many current publications take whatever content is going, or run stuff (particularly art) that is fashionable, not genuinely good. Scripsi manages to get it right across all its bases – beit academia, critique, short fiction or otherwise, the work is always intelligent, illuminating, ardent-hearted and very high quality. And sure I'm a die-hard, but the notion that it has been made by a bunch of long-haired Cohen-lovers over bottles of wine in living-rooms in Northcote is pretty charming.

As a reader, it was here that I discovered the poetry of John Forbes, so that was a gift in itself:


Speed, A Pastoral (for Angus Douglas)

it's fun to take speed
& stay up all night
not writing those reams of poetry
just thinking about is bad for you
– instead your feelings
follow your career down the drain
& find they like it there
among anthology of fine ideas, bound together
by a chemical in your blood
that lets you stare the TV in its vacant face
& cheer, consuming yourself like a mortgage
& when Keats comes to dine, or Flaubert,
you can answer their purities
with your own less negative ones – for example
you know Dransfield's line, that once you became a junkie
you'll never want to be anything else?
well, I think he dies too soon,
as if he thought drugs were an old-fashioned teacher
& he was the teacher's pet who just put up his hand
and said quietly, 'Sir, sir'
& heroin let him leave the room.

Beautiful stuff.

Back cover of the April 1985 issue