Harcourt's Salient: A HĀLf-Cooked Suet Pudding?

by Stephanie Du Fresne

When slightly-slightly dave, co-editor of arcourt (literary vehicle to the university) applied for the editorship of Salient he was the only applicant. So he became the editor-elect. And those of you who are interested in literature will have chortled quietly when you saw the photograph of half-way dave standing in editorial-electoral meditation in last week's Salient, thinking now Salient will be full of poems and line drawings and electron micrographs of sam hunt's left earhole.

But if you went so far as to read the blurb accompanying this charming study of a great man in repose you will realise you have been had.

Because the centre pages have been sentenced to extinction when nearly-nearly dave takes over. This is obviously a cunning plot to channel all poetry into arcourt. because although you pay for both salient and arcourt. whether you like it or not; Salient turns up, week after week. Wednesday or Friday as the mood takes it, in a huge free pile in the foyer, whereas arcourt turns up about once a term, in small mean piles in the foyer, and you have to pay 20c for the privilege of reading it, on top of your involuntary contribution.

So in one masterly stroke, just-about dave has restricted the viewing of poetry to the upper-middle-classes who can afford 20c for that purpose, increased the amount of copy Arcourt is supplied with, and maybe even increased that official vehicle's circulation.

Now those of you who were brought up on mickey mouse or playboy, those of you who realise the existence of creative photographers and visual artists in your midst, and even those of you who aspire in your midst, and even those of you who to journalism, will have noticed that whatever Salient lacked this year, it was generally well laid-out and easy to look at.

And even without the big black lines and the occasional news photograph, the centre pages were designed as an attempt at graphic relief, visual uplift and retinal arousal by complementing poems with photography and visual art-work.

Next year, one gathers. Salient will be frenetically intellectual and vastly informative, with up-to-date, on-the-spot campus news and lots and lots of letters-to-the-editor with banner headlines as a bonus. And about as easy to digest and interesting to look at as a half-cooked suet pudding.

There are some good creative photographers in and around this university— notably, of this year's contributors. Greg Arnold and Jeff Kennedy. There are also a large group of people who consider that printing two bad negatives sandwiched together and adding a title, makes a good photograph.

However. Arcourt is too small to fit photographs on its tiny delicate pages, and too poverty-stricken, despite its grant, to be able to print them anyway.

So. no creative photography anywhere. Poetry only in the official vehicle. No graphic relief, visual uplift or retinal arousal in Salient. Hapening dave has spoken.

Salient is the only student newspaper to reserve space for poetry and graphics in every issue—if you want this to continue, remember you pay for the bloody thing!

This being the final issue of Salient for 1969, David Harcourt was given an opportunity to reply. He said:

"The above statement was handed to the editor of Salient together with a note which read: "this is the kind of hysterical accusation Harcourt expects of me". I expect nothing more of Miss du Fresne (or any other student, for that matter) than that she wait until Salient appears under my editorship before she judges it. In my opinion, the literary pages this year have been in the main, unsatisfactory. The poems and photographs used have too often failed to reach a standard which I would regard as high enough to warrant publication and the manner in which the material used has been treated has left a lot to be desired. As for Miss du Fresne's remarks about Argot: I am very anxious to ensure that as many alternatives to this magazine as possible are available to students. In 1970, Experiment will again, I hope, he published here and Arts Festival Literary Yearbook will be edited at Vic. I hope that each of these magazines will pursue an independent and stimulating editorial viewpoint. I certainly do not intend to interfere with either magazine. Salient will continue to publish poems and other creative writing in 1970—and photographs—where the material is of sufficient merit to warrant publication."