A naughty, naughty man.
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What’s it about?
Is it an allegory?
Are there inferences/references to anything
other than suburban decay?
What does it tell us about James K Baxter as a
poet?
What does it tell us about James K Baxter as a
person?
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The couple: National Mum and Labour Dad.
Mum lives in the past (“Mum takes down the
family files…”).
Dad lives in his own world (“Dad sits and
reads the Sporting Page/Then ambles out in
boots of lead”). Gardening is his
solace/escape.
Dad has been unfaithful with a neighbour.
Mum will never forget (…he/Will get no
sugar in his tea).
Their children and grandchildren visit on
Saturdays.
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One of the grandchildren “ploughs down”
one of Dad’s prized irises. Dad overreacts
(“Dad himself can go to town”).
The grandchild’s parents soothe things down
and leave.
The daughter and her husband are selfsatisfied, overweight and opinionated
(“Daughter Alice, fat and loud”; “Stuff their
tripes with trained endurance”).
The two old people are left to their “fouled
nest” when everyone has gone.
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Baxter then delivers his scathing commentary
on them and their lives. He goes from subtly
undermining their lives by observing them,
to giving his outright opinion.
“Habit, habit clogs them dumb” What the…?
“The Sacred Heart above the range…”
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A pagan reference: “Yin and Yang will never
meet”. What is Baxter trying to say here?
Why the repetition: “In Calvary Street, in
Calvary Street”?
So… is it an allegory? The definition of
allegory is “a symbolic work; a work in which
the characters and events are to be understood
as representing other things and symbolically
expressing a deeper, often spiritual, moral or
political meaning.”
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Spiritual
Moral
Political
Social?
As a person, this reflects James K Baxter’s
despair with the decay he associates with
suburbia. This relates closely to his affinity
with Maori culture and way of life.
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In Baxter’s words, the poet “should remain as
a cell of good living in a corrupt society, and
in this situation by writing and example
attempt to change it”.
One way in which he has attempted to do this
is by exposing what he sees as the emptiness
of suburban life.
“The elegance of his poetry is what makes the
poem effective as a piece of social
commentary.” Really? What do you think?
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Look back at the poem “High Country
Weather”. In comparing the Baxter of these
two poems, what is he saying about what he
values?