Anzac Day for Writers

Poet and novelist, Ocean Vuong, whose mother was a child of the Vietnam War, says that all literature is the history of war*. He need not be taken literally, although I tend to do so myself. More broadly, we may agree that literature relies on conflict or inner tension for its existence. Sometimes with resolution, sometimes without. Sometimes obvious, other times not.

When Caitlin O’Toole, editor of The Human Writers, called for submissions on the theme of Anzac Day in Australia, I leapt at the opportunity. The casualties of war are my specialty. As the daughter of a World War II veteran, I wanted to develop a scene from my draft memoir so that it reads as a stand-alone piece. The term Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and is our equivalent to Memorial Day (US) or VE-Day in Europe. Having ignored the Anzac ceremony for most of my life – or worse still – been dismissive of it, in 2006 I decided to attend the dawn service for veterans. The resultant essay, One Sacred Day, was finished in time for the magazine’s deadline – 25 April, the date of the annual ceremony.

Re-reading the story now, I see sentences I’d like to tighten, and that a paragraph makeover wouldn’t go astray. But basically I’m happy with the picture created. It features a young girl who steadfastly refuses to acknowledge her father rising in the dark on Anzac Day to join fellow ex-servicemen for the march down Swanston Street to the Shrine of Remembrance. It was going to be a long day – for father and daughter.

If Ocean Vuong is correct in his analysis of literature and war, then Australian writers have much to explore. Our country has participated in wars from the colonisation of the land, to the First World War, Vietnam, through to modern day Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe this domestic and international combat has left an imprint on the nation’s psyche which is yet to be fully examined. The impact of war goes well beyond the generation originally involved.

Hats off to Caitlin O’Toole for offering writers a portal into the investigation of what is affectionally or euphemistically known as the Anzac tradition.

*Actually what Ocean said was: “If you want to study literature, study war. For as long as there are soldiers there are poets.” The above is the way I interpreted it, until checking through many quotes from this wonderful writer for his actual wording. Thank you.