A Note on Anne Elder's Scenario for Summer

Abstract

A Note on Anne Elder's Scenario for Summer Paul Kane For years the poet Anne Elder (1918–1976) was best known for the Anne Elder Award, a prominent literary prize for a first book of poems (similar in prestige to the Yale Younger Poets Prize in the United States). That obscuration of the poet herself has changed of late, with her inclusion in poetry anthologies (by Puncher and Wattmann and the University of New South Wales Press) and particularly with the joint publication in 2018 of a new selection of her poems, The Bright and the Cold (edited by her daughter, Catherine Elder), and a biography, The Heart's Ground (by Julia Hamer). Anne Elder's first career was as a ballet dancer in the Borovansky Company in Melbourne, but her debut collection of poems, For the Record (1972), marked her immediately as a poet of distinction. After her early death, a posthumous volume was published by Angus and Robertson, Crazy Woman and Other Poems (1977), though plans for a collected poems never materialized. Scenario for Summer was written as a radio play in verse and never published (except for a revised excerpt that appeared under the title "Remember the Pool"). It is presumed to have been broadcast, but when and where is currently unknown. In accounting for the poem's provenance and appearance in Antipodes, I have to resort to some personal information. To begin with, the poem was found in Melbourne among the papers of Christine Nicholson, the mother of my late wife, Tina Kane. It was in a manila envelope with "6 Poems by Anne Elder" written on the cover. The poems are all in typescript, and I was told years ago by Chris Nicholson that they were given to her by Anne, a close friend. The other poems included are "To a Friend: On the Occasion of Her Death," "Unaddressed," "The Pilgrimage," "Christmas in Summer," and the well-known "Crazy Woman." When I inquired of Catherine Elder about Scenario for Summer, I received the following: "Even more exciting to hear of your connection to Chris Nicholson who was indeed a dear friend of my mother. Does this mean your wife is/was Tina Nicholson who I remember well from a family holiday at Cowes about 65 years ago?(!!) She and her friend Noelly(?) were then pretty girls in their early teens and my cousin Julia and I (3 or 4 years younger) followed them around in rapt admiration" (16 February 2021). And, subsequently, Catherine (or Cathie) wrote, And yes by all means mention my mother's friendship with Chris. It was very important to her when I was in my early teens and living at home. Not sure what happened later. On reading this piece I get the distinct impression it [End Page 167] draws on images from our holidays on Phillip Island—"the town set against the dramatic bay" could possibly be Cowes where Chris and Tina came to join us one year. And the main street with its honeymoon couples and juke boxes certainly so. The lovely selfish girls fiddling with their hair and strolling on the jetty could be any of us teenagers but I reckon Tina and Noelly were just at that age of delicious self-absorption and flirtatiousness. I and my cousin were too young and gauche to do more than look on in admiration. I remember a lovely evening cooking up a lobster in a cauldron over an open fire close to the beach … Chris was certainly present. Happy times. (7 September 2021) Phillip Island, southeast of Melbourne, remains a popular tourist destination. As Julia Hamer writes, "Sometimes the Elders rented houses by the beach and sometimes they boarded in country properties that were open to guests. Cathie loved these times, remembering especially collecting shells on the beaches of Phillip Island, and making necklaces from them; the lovely little fairy penguins; and dancing on the beach with Anne" (The Heart's Ground, 168). Much of this holiday life appears in Scenario for Summer, and certainly Chris Nicholson; her daughter, Tina; and son, Dennis, all spoke of their time there with great affection—and all had vivid memories of Anne...