The prose and poetry site for
L.R. PALMER
1934-1969
|
|
AND ARE WE
BORN TO THIS...
The prose and poetry site for
|
Lyn Palmer was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 1st May 1934 and died aged only 34, on 17th March 1969. She is buried at Springvale, Melbourne, in the A.F. Alway Memorial Lawn (Row T Grave 10). The cause of death, I am told, was a heart attack but later rumours have hinted at suicide. Her whole adult life, though, was a kind of suicide so I will stick to the facts as I understand them and leave the way open for further research.
Lyn had fought a battle with chronic asthma since childhood and was convinced that her life would be short. This conviction, which she divulged to only those closest to her, developed a unique personality. A lesbian (at a time when the dreaded word could never be mentioned and "gay" still had a secret meaning) she was given to fits of manic depression. She would drink to excess, but at all times had a perceptive, cutting wit. The anticipation of an early death made her question why she should have been born at all. Much of her poetry asks this and reveals that she often craved death.
From birth she was surrounded by melodrama. Some might term it tragedy. Born in Melbourne, Australia, her father was an alcoholic. Her mother, a pert little lady called Pearl, refused to marry him unless he agreed to control his drinking and accept some responsibility. Lyn (whose given names, both of which she disliked, particularly the first, were Elsie Ruth) was placed in the care of a foster family for her first five years. The way this came about is as unique an event as any in the poet's life. Pearl was sitting in a tea shop in Williamstown when she fell into conversation with a middle aged stranger. On hearing her story, the woman offered to foster the baby girl while her single mother worked to support her. The bargain was struck there and then and Lyn came to regard the foster family as her own and estranged herself from her mother, who was only free to visit her at weekends anyway. When the foster mother eventually died in about 1966 Lyn was heart broken. Through the years one of her most prized possessions was a woolen patchwork rug which the foster mother had crocheted for her.
These early memories clouded the rest of the poet's life. She inherited her father's obstinacy and irresponsibility while from her mother came her sardonic sense of humor. Almost a dual personality, Palmer's public joviality won her many friends. The poetry that she wrote in her teens indicates an ironic acceptance of life but even some of these early efforts foreshadow the black death wish that ultimately enveloped her.
She begins writing as an escape from the hypocrisy she sees in, for example, religion and its dogma. Soon afterwards she takes a job in a psychiatric hospital (Kew Cottages) as a nurse - with the intention of 'justifying her existence' by doing something useful. But from this experience emerges her first black poetry. After this period she passes through a phase where she lives alone in a cheap room in a 'trendy' area of Melbourne at the time, St. Kilda. Here she mixes with the arty intellectual gay world which, in those days, was known as 'camp society'. Her reaction to this in her poetry, despite outward appearances, is one of increasing depression.
She undertook the inevitable trip to London about 1957 with the hope of escaping haunting doubts and starting afresh. She was searching for mental stimulation but the life she led there, as a non-entity forced to accept typing jobs in an enormous impersonal city, only made her more bitter. An essay which she wrote only weeks before she returned to Australia is particularly scathing; but as the entire world has now gone the way that she described London in the late fifties, it is not published here.
She had a moderate number of lesbian affairs
but, until London, had never admitted to love as an emotion that
she could sustain. It hit her heavily when she finally accepted it at the
age of 25. The few poems she wrote at this time are naive, charming and
carefree
(See Nos. 19, 20, 21). But love had come
too late for her and, from this point onward, her personality noticeably
split. Her poems reflect her mental turmoil. 
After returning to Australia in 1960 she began to drink heavily and for increasing periods. She became unreliable and irresponsible in an apparently deliberate attempt to emulate her father. However at the same time she landed her first executive position in business, as assistant to Tom Miller of Talent Promotions Pty Ltd and based at the Channel 9 television studios in Melbourne. Lyn soon became one of the most powerful agents in Australia, representing the greatest entertainers of the period and acting as their mentor and friend. She was whole-heartedly loved by several people but rejected them one by one and became addicted to gambling. She deliberately ran herself into debt and eventually bankrupted herself in business. She averred that she hated the world and the corruption which she saw in the human race. She wanted to die.
Unwilling or unable at the time to take her own life (which she sometimes said she wanted to do) she set out consciously or otherwise to achieve oblivion through alcohol, which warred brutally with the prescription drugs she took for her asthma. The strain on her heart was more than it could sustain. Yet she contrived to appear to everyone, excepting those closest to her, to be cheerful and full of sharp, sometimes nonsensical, sarcastic humor.
Towards the end she achieved some equilibrium in a stable relationship but by now she had already suffered several heart attacks. At the time of her death she was leading a relatively adjusted life and, subject to sorting out the mess she had made of her business affairs, her personal future appeared more promising than it had ever been. But maturity arrived too late for her.
This poetry site devoted to Lyn Palmer reveals
a sensitive, confused young lesbian* growing up in the crazy, trendy, shallow
world of the fifties and sixties. It was a world which she could see too
clearly, but which she would not accept.
B.A. 1992
* Particularly effective lesbian
poems are Nos. 6 and 28, while life in London's lesbian clubs such as The
Gateways and
The Cellars is captured in Nos. 3, 4 and 11.
Top of
Page
Home Page
Click here for
information
The poems marked by Arabic numerals
are arranged in the order in which the poet left them: the first poems
being the last that she wrote, then proceeding in reverse order. Those
marked in Roman numerals, her lighter verses, are intermingled at
random in order to relieve the tone of pessimism and to remind the reader
of her reckless and nonsensical side. Most of these were written at work
to relieve her boredom, or at night when a wry thought occurred to her.
The humorous poems are NOT in any particular order.
If you want to read the serious
poems in chronological order, go to
bottom of
page.
All works are strictly Copyright
©
For permission to perform or
publish any of L.R. Palmer's works, please E-mail.
AND
ARE WE BORN TO THIS ?...
Top of
Page
Home Page
Click here for
information
| 1.
Softly I hear the song Eerily through the shades Of years Faintly but truly Stirring me still To Shame Song of hope and faith Song of my soul Before I was born When in years far distant
|
2.
I walked a while with pleasure She chattered all the way And not a thing I learned that day That pleasure walked with me. I walked a while with sorrow
|
1st week:
Discussions, discussions
Mutter me a discussion
Bore me with facts
Define me with seating
Tie me down
With the minutes of meeting.
2nd week:
Arguments, arguments
Shout me an argument
Confuse me with logic
Astound me with reason
Turn me about
With the change of the season
Final week:
Reprimands, reprimands
Mouthe me a reprimand
Lecture me with sorrow
Treat me with sufferance
Bid me to go
With never a reference.
| 3.
Jive little girl! Become a mindless robot Whirl and turn, whirl and turn And never look at your partner. Jive little girl!
Jive little girl!
|
4.
YOU GAIN ON THE ROUNDABOUT: A penny to ride the merry-go-round Everyone can afford it You're not in the race If you can't stand the pace Around and around and around. Twopence to ride the swings
Threepence to ride the roller coaster
Nothing to travel alone
|
II.
LIFE IN THE TYPISTS' POOL:
How to stay afloat
Or - how to be in the swim, tho' intelligent.
Rules of conformation:
Raise your voice five notches above its
normal timbre until it sounds like a supersonic
note heard only by the canine ear, and it will
be possible for you to converse with a cellmate.
Be conversant with all the latest C&A versions
of last year's Italian fashions.
Know the score of "My Fair Lady" and agree that
it has quite a good story.
Do not mention "West Side Story" or "Irma la Douce"
as these are reactionary and Not To Be Tolerated.
Refer to Mr MacMillan as "That nice bloke wiv
ther mustash wot interviewed that smashing Mr Eisenhower larse week."
Do not mention The Election. Only Communists vote.
Practise heart-rending screams for when an error
is made in your typing, e.g. The Southern Amazonian
Red Tailed Baboon in labour.
Know the Top 20 off by heart. For the novice,
this does not mean Liz, Phil, Chas, Annie,
Maggie etc., but Elvis, Tommy, Shirley, Ricki
and Conway Twitty.
Do not read, as this is highly suspicious,
interfering as it does with serious Telly watching.
When you have learnt these few minor rules
you will be able to Take Your Place in the
mysterious labyrinthine ways of those
who LIKE being cooped up with 20 others of their own
giggling, waffling, screaming ilk
in a sterilised cell
WHERE YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SMOKE,
EVEN AT MEALTIMES!
| 5.
Ghostfire in the trees Burns unholy flame Dance demons, dance! Wind sings eerily Stars turn away Dance demons, dance! Frost glimmers whitely
Doors bolted fast
Moon affrighted hides
|
L.R. Palmer - 1960
|
You are in my heart like a song
Throbbing, pulsating music loud
Sung by unseen life-giving throng
Never by discord being cowed.
You are in my mind with too sweet phrase
Resting never, scheming forever
Telling me how to live my days
Until death the reins do sever.
You are in my body like a knife
Destroying, shaping, though I sigh
The futile pattern of my life
For you are myself, my ego, I.
7.
Blind fools
not knowing
happily die
in their void.
Wise men
know not
and perish
in their misery.
Why search?
Why strive?
The end is the same
and still unknown
despite all pain.
The next two doggerel were
written for one
of the women she worked with
in the typists' pool
|
When Beth Met Geoff In Yarrawonga Did he wronga? Geoff didn't even
|
There was a young lady named Beth Who lisped when she tried to say yeth This embarrassed her so That she always said no That frustrated young damsel named Beth. |
8.
This precious draught
If enjoyed alone
Would make life sweeter
For a longer time
But I must always share
And in the sharing
The drink is often bitter
The cup of joy
Is a fragile one
At a single harsh note
It lies shattered and abandoned.
9.
OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES:
'A leader is found!'
Celebrations did abound,
All people danced and sang
And the whole world rejoiced.
'A leader is found!'
A child wondered at the sound,
Was puzzled by his elders' joy
'A leader to what?' he asked.
'A leader is found!'
Nations looked up from the ground
The earth rang with shouts of praise.
Nobody saw or heard the child.
VII.
Deep in the abyss something stirred
Was it feathered or was it furred
Or was it a Troll from the depths below
Chanting out its tale of woe?
I don't know what it was I heard
When deep in the abyss something stirred
All I know is that I ran
When the litany began
I could make out the words quite well
And that is why I ran like hell!
| 10.
BIRTHRIGHT: And are we born to this? Must our clear eyes become veiled, Our full hands empty and grasping, And our heads turned over our shoulders. And are we born to this?
And are we born to this?
And are we born to this?
|
11.
So many paths and lanes you rove, Pursuing what you call love. Oh what dreadful pains You suffer As the road gets rougher; Fools! When your fiery blood and heat Cools, Slow down and watch your feet. You see? Your varied tracks are all the same With but a different name. You don't chase, you flee.
|
|
In February 2010 all personal papers and a selection of photographs of LR Palmer were donated to the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives Visit: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~alga/ |
Written permission must
be obtained
prior to performance or publication
any of these works: E-mail
This page designed and hosted by
Dr Barb Angell,
Bundanoon, NSW 2578
Australia
Email: biz@angellpro.com.au
Phone: 0417 192 055