Near Believing by Alan Wearne review - What happens when a poet takes on other voices?

Alan Wearne, born 1948 in Melbourne, has been one of the most distinctive Australian poets of his generation. While others followed New York exemplars such as John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara and their rivals the older Americans such as Robert Frost, Wearne was always interested in the dramatic monologue and particularly in those nineteenth century poets who pioneered the device.

Wearne wanted to hear what happened when one took on the voices of others and used them as starting points for often complex narratives, revealing in the process much about Australian society of his own, and slightly earlier, times.

For this he chose to a variety of traditional forms but used a diction that was far from that of his mentors. Because of his Melbourne emphasis and employment of local slang, Wearne also reminded readers of an earlier Australian narrative poet, C.J. Dennis, creator of The Sentimental Bloke.

The immediate accessibility of Dennis, however, was not replicated. Wearne's vernacular was convincing but it was mostly in a syntax which demanded significant commitment from the reader. His stories, though having the necessary narrative momentum, could at times seem a little jagged and fragmentary.

In view then of Wearne's uniqueness and long-distance productivity, it's pleasing to see Puncher & Wattmann issuing what amounts to his selected poems.

The book starts with the still-compelling "Saint Bartholomew Remembers Jesus Christ as an Athlete" from Wearne's first chapbook and finishes with the title poem, "Near Believing", which appears to have been completed quite recently.

In between is a generous indication of all that Wearne has produced, including even the lengthy verse novels, The Nightmarkets and The Lovemakers (which are both effectively sampled here).

In a short review such as this it is impossible to do more than glance at the book's first and last poem. In the first, its disciple/narrator, emphasises Jesus' fearlessness and energy. At the end, the remaining disciples, "Lumbered up in prayer" and having "stopped the noise and movement", preserve a stunned silence as the narrator recalls: "I heard the footsteps pounding up the stairs".

In the last poem, "Press Play", a very different narrator asks: "For what girl looked more tempting circa Twenty? / They term it 'Adult'. 'Innocence' sounds better, /ripe to be rescued, the moment that I met her, / from all that sweaty tackiness which went / with long-lunching middle-management, / bugs in suits not doing overmuch / but perving, panting, too afraid to touch ..."