John Tranter

We here at Jacket2 are mourning the loss of John Tranter, founder, publisher, and editor of Jacket magazine. 

John Tranter founded this magazine in 1997. In 2010 he granted it to the University of Pennsylvania. Among the thousands of poems, reviews, interviews, photographs and articles by other creative artists published in «Jacket» magazine, his own work has made an appearance from time to time. This is a listing of that work, from «Jacket» 1 in 1997, to the final «Jacket» issue, 40, in 2010.

«Jacket» 01:
[»»] John Tranter reviews John Berger’s «Photocopies»: “IT’S SIMPLIFYING THINGS to call John Berger a Eurocentric left-wing analyst of art and culture, but I’m going to do it.”

A note from John Tranter: The Australian poet Martin Johnston was one of a generation of poets who invigorated Australian poetry in the late 1960s and 1970s. His contribution was unusual: he had a European upbringing, having spent fourteen years of his childhood abroad, in England and Greece. Martin died in June 1990 at the age of forty-two. Over the next two years I compiled a selection of most of his published poetry, essays and book reviews together with some interviews and photographs, and Martin Johnston — Selected Poems and Prose was published by the University of Queensland Press in 1993. A large number of Martin’s poems and prose writings are available in Jacket 1, together with some photographs, and another large tranche in Jacket 11, all linked to from the items below.

In Jacket 01:
The main part of my Introduction to the Selected Poems and Prose
A group of sonnets, In Transit — a Sonnet Square
An essay on Jorge Luis Borges

Jacket 3, April 1998, is dedicated to the memory of the recently-dead Australian poet John Forbes. Born in 1950, John Forbes suffered a heart attack and died suddenly at his home in Melbourne on 23 January 1998. He was forty-seven.
He was a subtle, ironic and brilliant poet, wholly dedicated to his art. In this issue: some poems by John, some photos, Gig Ryan’s eulogy, a review of his last book, and some poems by his friends.  — J.T.
John Forbes — five poems:
— ‘Speed, A Pastoral’
— 3 recent poems from Damaged Glamour
— poem: ‘Dean Martin’s definition of happiness’
Gig Ryan — i.m. John Forbes (with ‘Love Poem’ by John Forbes)

Ken Bolton — ‘(Two Portraits)’
Carl Harrison-Ford on John Forbes and his last book of poems
Rae D.Jones, ‘grim reaper blues’
John Kinsella, ‘The Dam Busters’
Nigel Roberts, ‘Dialogue with John Forbes’
Tracy Ryan, poem

Pam Brown's recent gigantic feature for Jacket2 titled "51 Contemporary Poets from Australia" had a ghostly foreshadowing a year or so ago, in Pam's "Rewriting Australia" feature in Jacket 39, where some Australian poets wrestle with their poetic forebears. Banjo Paterson shows up as a punching bag several times, perhaps because he is an old, dead, conservative white male with his portrait on the Australian ten dollar bill.

[»»] Pam Brown: Rewriting Canonical Australian Poems: Introduction
[»»] David Brooks: Cracks in the Fray: Re-reading ‘The Man From Snowy River’
[»»] Justin Clemens: Dürer: Innsbruck 1495
[»»] Michael Farrell: the king
[»»] Michael Farrell: Anti-Clockwise Judith Wright: A ‘Widdershins’ Reading of ‘Bullocky’
[»»] Duncan Hose: Blue Hill 404
[»»] Banjo Paterson: The Man From Snowy River; John Tranter: Snowy
[»»] David Prater: Three poems: Red Dawn Ward / Oz / “The Campfires of the Lost”