Those Old Subversive Starvation Box Blues

I’m as mild mannered as I can be,

And I’ve never done them harm that I can see.

Still on me they put a ban,

And they throw me in the can,

They go wild, simply wild, over me.

—“The Popular Wobbly”, by T-Bone Slim, first appeared in the 1920 edition of the Little Red Songbook published by the Industrial Workers of the World

I was notified last year, in an e-mail, by the poetry editor of Overland, Peter Minter, that my long-suffering poetry submissions to them had been rejected—for the following reason:

… I will no longer be publishing anyone who also publishes their work in Quadrant … I don’t wish to have any association with the authors of a journal edited by Keith Windschuttle.

Whew! Stupid me. I had thought that for the past couple of years, my poems were being consistently rejected by Overland because the poems weren’t good enough. With a sigh of relief, I put away my razor blade and rolled down my shirt sleeve.

That terse poetry “policy declaration” was included on six separate rejection e-mails to me. (Simply one would have been pretty clear, but you know what they say about some editors: never use one e-mail when two e-mails will do.)

I had had my hopes up for seeing some of my recent work in Overland, as they had once published a song lyric of mine. But, after waiting almost six months, the “No way, José” mission statement was sent to me—dashing my carefully folded poetry aeroplanes to the ground.

I felt used and misled. Because, to this day, there is still nothing officially posted on the Overland website, or in any of the submission information requirements, stating that Quadrant writers are persona non grata. It seems to be a wink wink nudge nudge understanding.

Occasionally, some Overlander accidentally coughs up a chicken bone of prejudice, but, generally, there is no stated official position. In fact, many of you still probably have no idea that this black-ban has been in place for over a year.

Imagine my shock-horror, then, to finally be let in on the Secret Rule of the Apron. Holy Knights of the Moose! Also, I have been a habitual Labor supporter (I say habitual, as I knew it wasn’t good for me in the last election, but I did it anyway). I am now attending OLA: Old Lefties Anonymous.

So, you might ask, if I had been a loyal Labor voter, why would I want to publish in Quadrant? Simple: Quadrant has an open mind to my poetry and essays. The key phrase here being: open mind. Left and Right, in my mind, in today’s 50 Shades of Grey world, have come to mean practically naught. Left and Right today are more appropriate for car battery s. (Mistake one for the other there, my friends, and you are in for 50 Shades of Barbecue.)

Actually, I had never previously thought of myself as fundamentally left-wing, or right-wing, until the music editor of the Herald, in a four-star review of my album Freelovedays, in 2004, referred to me affectionately as a “tree-hugging hippie”. I liked that.

Overland published one of my song lyrics, “Starvation Box Blues”, with no complaint, in their Winter 2012 issue, before their donkey threw a shoe. Having had one poem through the gate already, I thought I was a member in good standing. So naturally, it came as a surprise when I received a rude boot out of the Tree-Huggers Collective.

I have wondered why such a left-leaning magazine as Overland (which leans so far to the left that it is surprising there is anything left) would publish my song lyrics back then, but not now. Quadrant has published twenty-five of my lyrics in the same period. Was it something I said between then and now? I’m not writing any differently. Was it a standard mindless insult I forgot make against the Prime Minister, as a few of my Facebook friends do? Something certainly had changed, and I don’t think it was me, as I am still quite fond of hugging the occasional spotted gum.

I decided that there must be something intrinsically subversive under the surface of that old innocuous song lyric, “Starvation Box Blues”, that resonated strongly with Overland’s editors, in order for them to print it. You know, they say the artist is the last person you should ask about the meaning of their art. So I did an Overland-style socio-politico-commie-Freudian analysis of the lyric.

Here are the complete lyrics, as published by Overland in the Winter 2012 issue:

Starvation Box Blues

When I got myself this Starvation Box,

my daddy told me son you’re bound to lose.

“You ain’t never gonna make no money playing that guitar,

only give you the Starvation Box Blues.”

Now, I’ve stood in that Welfare line,

I’ve passed the hat and I’ve played for food.

I hope my luck changes soon,

I’m so sick of these Starvation Box Blues.

Sometimes I want to smash this Starvation Box,

build a fire just to warm my feet,

or bust it into little pieces,

and use the toothpicks to pick my teeth.

Sometimes I wish I had me a regular job,

and was making steady money just like you,

instead of living with so much damn uncertainty,

and all these Starvation Box Blues.

Simple enough. Nothing flagrantly revolutionary, or the kind of thing one would sing on the barricades. But let’s go through this deceptively simple piece of subtle musical propaganda, verse by verse, with the forensic light of hindsight, and examine the subtext, as some old Marxist hermit might have done.

“Starvation Box Blues” refers to 1940s slang for a guitar, but there is a much subtler overtone of the “box”, where starvation occurs, namely, the Manus Island detention centre.

In the first verse, Comrade Citizen is doomed to the poverty line as a direct consequence of PM Abbott’s cuts to arts funding and to the ABC/SBS military-industrial complex. Indeed, in the very capitalist system where it once might have been feasible for him to even earn a crust under the Rudd–Gillard–Rudd administration, as a fully functioning grant-funded artist, he now has a snowball’s chance in Kalgoorlie of getting to the government feed trough. The patriarchal “daddy” suggests the oppression of the feminine and the politically incorrect exclusive father-son paradigm which illustrates the erasure and marginalisation of women in the present überzeitgeist.

On to the second verse. I once stood in that “welfare line” myself—or, for Australians, the CES queue—but now not even that option is available to Comrade Citizen, without reams of incomprehensible paperwork. Oh yeah, and actually going out on job interviews. This verse illustrates how much worse-off struggling artists are today, due to razor-gang slashes in social welfare and arts funding under the Abbott government. The passing of the “hat” could symbolise the fedora-brimmed shadow of the Great Depression which looms.

We also find Islamophobia rearing its ugly burka where Comrade Citizen is required to remove his head covering, in order to submit to the capitalist paradigm, without which he would have a snowball’s chance in Tehran of surviving the cruel broken Larson Shelf eternal night of economic global warming winter before us. But implied here also is that Comrade Citizen’s “luck” could change soon, with a return of Labor to power, and restoration of endless budget funding and complimentary energy-efficient solar-powered guitar picks.

In the third verse the true revolutionary spirit of Comrade Citizen emerges in his willingness to tear down the unfair system itself, symbolised by destroying his own guitar, in order to allow a new fairer “guitar”, or system, to arise. The metaphor of the single guitar, as symbol of capitalist oppression, can be found as far back as Marx’s Idea of the Emergence of Human Nature (see Karl Marx, Economics: Critical Assessments, edited by John Cunningham Wood):

Suppose one is interested in playing the guitar. It is a perfectly decent wish, not some greedy, nasty thing one wants to do. However, there is only one instrument available but three people in the commune want to play … so this leads to conflict. More guitars would be the best solution. (Capitalists offer another, one that accepts scarcity as an unavoidable part of human living on this earth.)

There you have it. From the plough-horse’s mouth.

The “fire” suggests global warming; and the toothpicks, of course, the destruction of old-growth forest for short-sighted profiteering from Japanese wood-chipping. The starving Comrade Citizen’s plight resonates with that of all homeless people, indicated by the powerful imagery of warming shoeless feet before a fire. Current government policy gives the musician in Australia a snowball’s chance in Uluru of even affording shoes, much less finding a proper second-hand space heater out on the footpath, as I did last month.

In the final verse, of course, with cuts to education, Comrade Citizen is prevented from obtaining further learning and self-improvement, illustrated by the poor colloquial English he employs (“I wish I had me …”). Due to the closure of Australia’s major automotive plants, thanks to the withdrawal of support by the current government, he also now has a snowball’s chance at Holden of finding work and making “steady money” on any car assembly line, much less work as an accredited English tutor at the University of Newcastle—although a few opportunities still remain available at the Australia Council or as a freelance theatre critic for the Age.

The uncertainty that Comrade Citizen feels, throughout this song lyric, echoes the plight of all Australians, as they see nothing but hardship ahead of them in the current sociopathic-economic environment. Implied in the final verse, and throughout the song, is that a return to the happy merry-go-round days of Labor leadership would also produce a welcome return to a New Social Fairness where Comrade Citizen would be able to achieve better upward mobility as a completely self-sufficient arts-grant-funded artist—something he now finds exceedingly difficult to do under these Liberal penny-pinchers.

Well, that clears everything up. I knew there was something subversive going on in there.

The longtime editor of Overland, Jeff Sparrow, was reportedly asked about the “blackball”, of authors who publish in Quadrant, or writers who “associate” with Keith Windschuttle, in a phone conversation with Paul Mitchell of Going Down Swinging magazine:

I contacted Overland editor Jeff Sparrow and he told me that Minter’s e-mail to the poet in question had been off-the-cuff and that no such editorial policy exists.

Is that a fact? Well, I received that “off-the-cuff” statement of “no such editorial policy” on six separate poetry rejections from Mr Minter in his official capacity as poetry editor of Overland. He also repeated it verbatim on Facebook.

Jeff Sparrow has since left the editorship of Overland and has been replaced by the deputy editor, Jacinda Woodhead. Overland is looking for a new poetry editor as well. Musical chairs. Kind of brings back the good-bad old days of Rudd–Gillard–Rudd–Arthur–Martha–Arthur.

In his memoir Indirections in 1981, the founder of Overland, Stephen Murray-Smith, stated that he was “determined that Overland should avoid the dreadful humorlessness and dogmatism of the fully convinced”. (Can I have a boom-boom?)

I had originally considered sending this essay to Overland to see if their sense of humour was recovering, or was still on life support, but decided not to waste an e-stamp. I might send them some limericks instead.

But writing this essay has given me an idea. I plan now to apply to the Australia Council for a super-grant, to fund an expedition to Paraguay for a select group of my artist mates, to found a completely self-insufficient colony, Nuevo Australiana. We will spend an entire year of exclusively writing: grant applications.