The ‘Ice Cold Words’ Antarctic Writers’ Festival ran from Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th June at the Peacock Theatre in
Hobart – a weekend festival of readings, discussions, debates and interpretations of Antarctica featuring Australian
and international authors who have either travelled to Antarctica or have published fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry
and prose set in Antarctica.
The festival opened Friday evening, with Sir Guy Green launching issue 105 of Island Magazine, followed by a theatrical
piece from Robert Jarman. Tim Bowden then introduced the writers featured in the festival.
Some notes from the weekend’s sessions follow….
The first session of Saturday’s program is entitled "Myths and Legends – Themes and Motifs in Antarctic Writing," and
features Bill Manhire, Steve Martin, Allen Mawer and Elle Leane. It’s timed to begin at 10 am, but by 10 am there are
no more than four or five people in the theatre – the panel speakers - standing around on stage, perhaps discussing the
forthcoming reading, order of readers, where to sit. Besides yours truly, there’s not a soul in the audience. Festival
director Joe Bugden patrols the aisle. ‘Hobart audiences’ he mutters, flashing a grin. His patience is rewarded as
within the hour the audience builds to fifty or more.
Allen Mawer introduces the readers on the panel. "I think Bill Manhire could be called the Poet Laureate of Antarctica
because I don’t think any other poet has been down to the South Pole." Elle Leane speaks of the way Antarctic myths
have arisen, utilising as an example the legend of a mystery ship encountered in 1840 - crew dead, having been
trapped in ice floes for the past seventeen years. Such stories generate their own interest, Leane suggests,
Rosemary Dobson for instance referring to it in her poem ‘The Ship of Ice’. "There’s the idea that time flows
differently in Antarctica," Elle concludes, "it seems to be a place of preservation whereby its layers of ice
give access to past ages, I think that’s because of its remoteness. Nevertheless I believe it has a predictive
function as well, is capable of informing us about future time."
Steve Martin, speaking of the career of expeditioner Ernest Henry Shackleton, foreshadows his talk as "somewhat
morbid" given its concerns with the mythology of death. "The Antarctic tourist industry has developed around
Shackleton," he points out, adding "Though I’m not complaining, because I’m part of it. One of my greatest life
experiences was to stand on Elephant Island – where twenty-two members of Shackleton’s ship Endurance survived
for nearly two years before being rescued - with my thirteen year old son last year."
Mawer turns to New Zealand poet Bill Manhire. "Bill, are you going to continue the tendency of this session to
be morbid? Or will you perhaps explore the idea that Antarctica can take us back to a utopian ideal?" Manhire’s
disquietening response is to report on a science conference held in Beijing a week or two previously where
astrophysicist Stephen Hawking offered the keynote speech. Hawking’s message was that human society might be
well advised to establish a permanent base on the moon in twenty years and a colony on Mars in the next forty
given that continued life on Earth is subject to the disastrous possibilities of nuclear war and global warming.
"Interestingly," adds Manhire as he threads the relevance of Hawking’s message to the concerns of the panel session,
"someone in the audience argued against his idea as impractical and expensive, that the idea of the colonisation of
Mars was a great waste of money, and suggested that perhaps it’s Antarctica that’s the place to do it, the place
that can take us back to a vision of utopia."
Manhire introduces quotations from writers familiar with Antarctica. "The excruciating purity of the environment
allows the traveller to simplify himself," was science fiction writer Richard Matheson’s response to the experience
of Antarctica. [Matheson - whose Antarctic experience as a tourist in 1989 changed his life forever – is these
days a supporter of The Antarctica Project, a Washington, D.C.-based umbrella organization coordinating the
efforts of different environmental groups to make Antarctica the first World Park]. The word ‘pure’ recurs
throughout Manhire’s commentary. "When it comes to the early Antarctic explorers, the purity of the place
– the human yearning for some kind of purity – has attached itself to those people … or perhaps they’ve
attached it to themselves".
Elle Leane, in response, remarks that within the notion of purity lurks … something quite dreadful. She
alludes to charges of cannibalism raised within an Antarctic context, while someone else points to the
connection between purity and race. Manhire agrees. Hitler and his friends were "the great exponents of
purity" he points out, adding that a strong impulse in the world of art is to find the pure within "the
messy, impure things in life". "Another point I could make about Antarctica" he adds, his fertile
imagination off on yet another tack, "is that it is often gendered as female – just as imperial,
colonial literature everywhere genders Antarctic explorers as male. That’s normal, of course … it’s
just that Antarctica manages to remain virginal."
A question from a member of the audience queries the failure of memory, particularly in relation to
the myth of Shackleton as someone who "never lost a man", when in fact this was incorrect. "Not sure
why people tend to ignore the Ross Sea party," is Steve Martin’s response, "perhaps the myth is neater,
it doesn’t offer an awkward postscript".
"But it’s accentuating what we choose to remember, what we perpetuate as myth," the questioner persists.
"Which gets back to the question of why we need myth so badly in society. To be truthful, I don’t know!"
In summing up, Mawer suggests the themes covered are the universal ones, "projected on this huge
panorama, which of course has nothing on it – so it is of course, about us."
Next is a reading, featuring Laurence Fearnley, Bernadette Hince and Anthony Lawrence.
"Rather than work on my novel, I spent my days working with glaciologists," observes Laurence Fearnley in explaining
the day to day routine of her life in Antarctica. [Fearnley was awarded a New Zealand Antarctic Arts fellowship and
travelled to the Antarctic in January 2004]. "What’s important to me with my writing is primarily location, then the
characters directing the plot. I like to observe a place, learn about it over the years so I can accurately
portray it in my writing. My terrible predicament with regards Antarctica was that my fellowship was only two
weeks in length, and I believed I’d never return. During those two weeks I anxiously observed everything and
everyone, I watched the glaciologists like a hawk". Fearnley diligently – feverishly? - observed, recorded and
wrote as much as she could during her two weeks on the continent. She concludes by reading a couple of pages -
poignant and personal paragraphs - from the book resulting from her residency: Degrees of Separation, her fifth
novel, published by Penguin in 2006.
Bernadette Hince is next to the podium, reading a prose extract capturing the perhaps naïve expectations of arrival at
Casey – for instance, the expectation of an absence of smell. "This is of course not the case … there are beach smells,
the odours emanating from penguin rookeries, the hut’s smouldering smoke fire fuelled by eucalypts transported from two
thousand miles away. There’s a lot of smell in Antarctica."
Anthony Lawrence is solemn as he approaches the microphone, but light of tone and engaging of his audience when he
speaks. He’s alternatively poet and fisherman, relating tales of his interminable travels in boats throughout the
Great Southern Ocean, of sliding past the Hippolytes with its huge and wonderful cormorant rookeries, witnessing
numerous baitballs of fish "ripped into by any species of fish". Anthony reads "Wandering Albatross", a poem that
came to him on a fishing trip where he found himself in the excruciating position – for a poet – of being without
a writing implement. "The poem was coming, but I had nothing on me to write it down. Eventually I found a sharpened
screwdriver and scratched the opening words on the back of an aluminium lure tray … when I transcribed it I think
I’d caught most of it". He continues with poems "Baitball", "Scarves" (playing loosely with images of the scarves
we wear for style and warmth, the scarves we administer in wood ringbarking a tree, the scarf the poet witnessed
worn by a satin bowerbird), and "Luge". "I wrote ‘Luge’ during the winter olympics, fascinated by the idea of
heading feet first down the run, it reminded me of archival footage I’d seen of someone being buried at sea. I
thought, okay, there’s a poem here".
The next session features Craig Cormick Terry Whitebeach, Laurence Fearnley and Tim Bowden: ‘JAFO’S AND JAFA’S.
Are writer’s perspectives (as opposed to, say, scientists’) valid, naïve, romantic, realistic?’
"I’m intrigued to know why we even have to ask the question," admits Craig Cormick. "There are many different ways to
write Antarctica, both scientists and writers are attempting to find elusive truths that at the end of the day bind us
much more tightly together than you might think."
"I was in Dundee a couple of weeks ago where I visited the Discovery Point Antarctic Museum and where the research
ship Discovery is on display. When I was little, I had a model of Discovery, so I was familiar with her shape.
What I was unprepared for was the beauty of it, and I found myself thinking – here I am, by Shackleton’s cabin,
imagining his daily routine. That’s what you have to do as a writer of course; you have to imagine, in an effort
to take us beyond what is known."
"Imagination, again. Mawson, arriving back at base to find his ship has left, that he’ll have to winter at the
base. In his diary is one short entry. That’s it! But what was he thinking? We don’t know, we have to imagine."
"These are not new debates, of course. Can male writers write about women’s lives? Can non-indigenous writers write
with authority about indigenous life? etc. Of course, the scientific perspective is valuable. But sometimes the
imaginative perspective captures an experience that surprises us, offers added dimension to what it is we’re
trying to understand."
Terry Whitebeach’s response to the question of whether writers’ perspectives may be valid, naïve, romantic or
realistic, is that yes, they may be any or all of the above. "As may scientists’," she adds. "I don’t see it as
a dichotomy. As an either or. Although I do agree with Kathleen Jaimie, it’s poetry’s job to keep making sense
of the world in language, to keep the negotiation going."
"Some scientists don’t acknowledge this. But then, some scientists once believed the earth was flat. And it’s
a fact quantum physics is only just beginning to explore the territory well known to poets for centuries."
In response to the question of what writers and other artists have to offer scientific investigation of Antarctica,
Whitebeach says that as a JAFO/closet JAFA she recognised it was a privilege to be on an Antarctic expedition
"and I tried to fulfil my end of the reciprocally incurred obligation to the officers and IRs on board ship and
the station staff in Antarctica by lending a hand wherever possible, by scrupulously observing regulations and
procedures, and by not demanding too much of busy people, and to ANARE, by producing a radio play Antarctic Journey."
"I did not find such a great gulf between scientists and writers/artists as might be imagined. Many people in
Antarctica are both, and, the way most people of intelligence and empathy approach the world is never singly
dimensional."
"In 1993 I was approached to contribute poems for an Antarctic mid-winter exhibition with a difference: instead
of being a public showing, the writing and artwork was to be photocopied and given to each of the winterers to
read and view privately. And it was not writing about Antarctica that was requested, just the richness of one’s
mind and heart and art, whatever word-gifts we had to offer to those far from home."
"Many scientists are also writers. In the old station logs I found poems, philosophical and historical musings,
psychological analyses, motherly brooding over the men in their care, rapt descriptions of place, as well as
crisp, recordings of facts. Temperatures, wind-speeds, repairs to huts, scientific readings of all kinds."
"The thing that unites most expeditioners to Antarctica is their passion for the place: and particularly
enthusiasms, such as a passion for upper atmosphere physics, glaciology, Weddell seals, or polar birds,
are not so different from the passion of a writer to find words for the particularness of life, for what
touches the mind and heart; the desire to achieve in words a precision of sense and feeling that will point
beyond, to what can’t be articulated but which nevertheless exists and is real."
"Kathleen Jamie reminds us, though, ‘If we always work in words, sometimes we need to recuperate in a
place where language doesn’t join up, where we’re thrown back on a few elementary nouns. Sea. Bird. Sky.
This is also one of the appeals of Antarctica. It can’t be proscribed or contained – by either science or art.’ "
"Barry Jones says ‘art has sustained me my whole life. It helps make sense of existence.’ "
"I have always been avid for facts, for details of Antarctica. And I have been grateful for those scientists
who have articulated the place by means of their particular discipline. As a writer and as a person, I was
overjoyed finally to fulfil my long-held dream to stand on the Antarctic continent. Everyone feels it. There
are just not the words, always, for that feeling. It’s the love of the place, and science or writing or
photography are the vehicles that transport us there: I found my own family in Antarctica. They gave me
facts about engineering of ice runways, about glaciers, wind speeds, crevasses, the atmosphere, bow
thrusters, snow petrels, Norwegian cookery. I gave them my humanity, my writer’s mind and heart, a
particular way of seeing the world; I gave them my science – the discipline of the writer to craft what
the senses, the memory, observation deliver to the human heart, to be transformed and reformed into
gifts that then may become the property of whoever chooses to accept them."
Laurence Fearnley laments the fact that it’s only twenty-four hours since she realised she was to appear
on this particular panel. "And I assumed immediately the acronym had nothing to do with observers and
administrators, that JAFA simply meant ‘Just Another F****** Aucklander’, at least that’s what it does
back home."
"When it comes to our reception as artists and writers," she continues, "I don’t think we need to be
treated as VIP’s, but I certainly think we need to be treated more equally. New Zealand artists find
themselves with two weeks in which to gather material - very large bodies or work – but with no ability
to develop the work over a period of time. I think it’s wrong. When I applied for the Antarctic Arts
Fellowship, I had a very roughly structured idea of the project which – speaking from experience –
was so broadly focussed that when I arrived I found myself at a loss."
"I came back home, seriously considering studying to become a geologist because I wanted so much
to go back to Antarctica. I had the feeling that I didn’t have enough material for the novel; I felt
the need to protect all that I’d experienced, replay it over and over in my head until I got it right".
"But I was fortunate. I got a second trip - even came to feel about Antarctica as a place where I’d
like to live."
"In terms of change – I think I’m back to normal now [laughs], but I’d still like to do the geology."
Tim Bowden observes that "from an Australian perspective one is in no danger of being treated
like a VIP, Laurence".
Terry Whitebeach admits she’d found it difficult to articulate her urge to visit Antartica, but
it had always been there. "When I was younger, I used to go down to the wharfs with my children
to where the Nella Dan was berthed. ‘See that ship?’ I’d say. ‘Mummy’s going on that ship to
Antarctica one day.’ Well I didn’t go on the Nella Dan – unfortunately it sank, well no it didn’t
sink, it ran aground off Macquarie Island and was eventually scuttled – but I managed to get there anyway."
"In Antarctica I felt I understood the origin of the religious impulse, the response to something
overwhelmingly powerful and inexplicable. On the trip down I was hanging out the porthole, getting
quieter and quieter, more and more inward as time went on."
Craig Cormick concurs. "Many who go to Antarctica are those with an Antarctic-shaped hole in their
head or their heart. I’m intrigued by those who don’t have that perception, but who are changed anyway."
The next session is entitled ‘The Ulysses Factor’, in which writers investigate the ‘peopled’ Antarctica:
the human relationships and communities of Antarctica, and ponder the types of personalities that hurl
themselves against nature – again and again, and again… It features Steve Martin, Bill Manhire, Adrian
Caesar, and Allen Mawer.
Steve Martin compares the way many view a visit to Antarctica as the experience of a lifetime, alongside
that of the Russian experience. "Many Russians do it for a job. They’re poorly paid, blasé about it. Their
experience is different from that of other nationalities, who build little communities within themselves,
friendships, animosities, marriages … where the boundaries and descriptions of Antarctic communities are
forever changing. Temporary, impermanent populations. Their personal and intimate nature is the reason
people return to them, leaving what to some is a more complex society behind them."
Bill Manhire speaks of the Mount Erebus tragedy of 1979 when more than 250 people died as the result of an
Air New Zealand flight crashing into Mount Erebus in the Antarctic. In 2004, Manhire was invited to write
a poem marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the tragedy. It was read by Sir Edmund Hillary, who had
been scheduled to take the flight but had pulled out due to prior commitments. "In the aftermath of the
Mt Erebus accident, there were many and varied voices heard, but the two voices we didn’t hear were
those of the mountain, and of the people who died," Manhire explained. "I attempted to give those
voices a hearing in my poem ‘Erebus Voices’, which Sir Edmund Hillary read at the crash site on the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the tragedy, in 2004."
Allen Mawer’s slant on Antarctic relationships takes in the fate of the animals taken to the continent.
"They have names, they have characters – but we always knew that very few would come back." A historian,
Mawer laments the lack of lower deck – as opposed to wardroom – records of early Antarctic expeditions.
His tales reveal a keen sense of the ridiculous. "Let me read you of the attempts to claim the continent
by throwing a flag on a pole onto terra firma - only to see it strike rocks and fall into the icy
water, Antarctica’s first proclamation of sovereignty … floating out to sea."
In question time, the point is raised about the human presence in Antarctica – is it warranted?
"Perhaps it’s the seduction of the possible," is the reply, "we’re there because we can be there."
Steve Martin agrees that he’s come across the notion of a sense of trespass in Antarctica, "The sense
that perhaps we shouldn’t be there, but we’re going to be there anyway".
Antarctica "really put me in my place," Bill Manhire observes. "The place and the weather rule what
is possible. I really understood that I was on an island, I could see the curve of the earth – absolutely."
"I think that’s where Scott’s difficulty lay," adds Adrian Caesar. "I think he was unable to accept the
position that Antarctica – the weather, the terrain – was in charge. He came from a tradition that said
an English naval sea captain could achieve anything. Nothing changed this."
Readings by Adrian Caesar, Steve Martin and Terry Whitebeach follow. Adrian Caesar’s poems explore the idea of
Antarctica as metaphor. "For many people, the encounter with Antarctica gives them a heightened sense of meaning,
but the icy terrain can also register as blankness, echoing back a blankness that can be terrifying … I suppose
this is my meditation on the blank page of Antarctica."
Terry Whitebeach reads small excerpts for her radio play "Antarctic journey", and from her journal written in
Antarctica. "And I’ll read a warm poem about sex," she adds. "But it’s not sex in Antarctica because as we all
know it doesn’t happen there".
Steve Martin suggests that as the session has run out of time, he’ll settle for relating the tale of a marriage
between two Russian crew, a couple serving on different ships who had only three days together before going their
separate ways. The story ended with a chance meeting, a lover’s tryst, and a hasty retreat as one of the vessels
got underway. "Had he managed to get off before the ship got underway? Yes, he’d taken care of himself;
as I looked behind, there he was in his zodiac, following his wife on the Russian ship, gliding side to
side in the waves, saying his goodbyes."
Next follows "A View to a Krill", a session in which writers discuss how the alternate modes of travel prepare
and transform writers’ assumptions, expectations and perspectives during their approach to Antarctica. It
features Laurence Fearnley, Bernadette Hince, Tim Bowden and Bernadette Hall.
"I notice," begins Laurence Fearnley, "that I’m again the only one without notes for this session."
"I’m a very excitable traveller. When I’m flying, I’m often at the check-in counter before the check-in staff
have arrived. On the occasion of my first visit to Antarctica, I arranged a 3am wake up in order to get to
Christchurch airport on time. [I didn’t know the plane had been cancelled]. I had to go through the whole
process the following day … fortunately it went this time. While on the plane I realised people were wearing
different coloured uniforms, depending on the level of cool one had attained. I was dressed in blue, yellow
and green, or the uncool end of the spectrum. After five hours we arrived in Antarctica. I had no idea the
plane had even landed until they opened up the doors to unload. And from this really noisy, really dark
enclosure, I found myself facing the most beautiful sight I’ve ever experienced. Arriving in Antarctica was
like being given the gift I’d always wanted, but it was kind of bittersweet – to arrive at the place where
you’ve always wanted to be is a bit like being alive when being alive means that at the very same moment,
you’re dying."
"We’d have no need for notes either if we could all speak as elequently as you, Laurence," observes
Bernadette Hince.
Tim Bowden speaks on how from an Australian perspective, the sea voyage equalled the ritual of moving into
another world … of the way that new arrivals think their year will be different from any other, of their
observations of the first faint smudges of pack ice on the horizon. " ‘I must not photograph any more
icebergs,’ I said to myself, many times, ‘and then … oh, but l-o-o-k!’ One had access to the bridge at
all times, and first timers would flock there to drink in every aspect of this wonderful journey."
"We’ve talked about how the experience of Antarctica changes people, in my case it turned a cynical old
journo towards poetry," Bowden adds, before reading the poem he wrote to his wife, while in Antarctica.
Bernadette Hall speaks of her journey to Antarctica by Hercules aircraft. "We’d been warned it was the
journey from hell, warned it could be a boomerang flight. My preparation for Antarctica was to see it as
a metaphor for possibly … a place of spiritual loneliness, depression, possibly purity. I found the
experience far more physical than I’d ever imagined. There was virtually no time to read, we spent all
of our time travelling."
"It took us two weeks to get to Antarctica on the Icebird in 1995," recalls Bernadette Hince. "Travel
lifts away the burden of everyday life, a great freedom is conferred on you … we experienced two weeks
of animated conversation on our way down, but on the morning of our arrival we stood on the bow of the
ship, silently watching, experiencing a very special moment coming into a quiet place. It was raining
that morning – it hadn’t rained in Casey for four years."
For Bill Manhire, the most difficult aspect of travelling to and from Antarctica was the sudden arrival back
home in New Zealand by aeroplane. It was a difficult adjustment. "God this place is vile, dirty," he thought
to himself, "I noticed some orange marigolds in a flowerbox at the airport … I just wanted to pull them out."
Bernadette Hince’s arrival home coincided with the Port Arthur massacre. "That was a great contrast - from
my safe, closeted Antarctic lifestyle - to arrival back to the horrors of modern existence."
Tim Bowden’s arrival home was to the smell and smoke of bushfires in southern Tasmania. "I had the impression
I was coming back to a much more complicated life."
Bernadette Hall’s belated reflection came during the 54 km drive home from Christchurch Airport. "I suddenly
came to the realisation that for twenty minutes I had been concentrating purely on long sightedness – as
you do in the icy white panorama of Antarctica - that I’d not short focused at all ... God knows if I
ran any red lights or not. That was among the first impressions of my return."
"Out in the Cold" features Julia Jabour, Marcus Haward, Eric Philips and Bernadette Hince, in which
writers debate who ‘owns’ Antarctica. Who are the outsiders there, and who is legitimate? How are the
claims and interests of scientists, environmentalists, tourism operators, and writers and artists, etc.
represented? Marcus Haward gives some background to the problem of overlapping claims to the area. ‘Japan
was prohibited from making a claim as a result of its post World War II peace treaty,’ he explains,
alluding to the tension that now exists between Japan and Australia over whaling operations off the
Antarctic shelf. ‘The other way of looking at ownership is common heritage, where the role of artists
is perhaps very important. The images and stories that non-scientific figures are able to share with
the rest of the community may provide a way of understanding the complexity of the problems facing us
in Antarctica. Are we in danger of over-exploiting our marine resources, for instance?’
‘I’m feeling a little like a Patagonian toothfish out of water sitting here amongst the current gathering,’
Eric Philips begins by way of introducing himself. ‘I’m not a scientist, neither do I have a detailed
knowledge of the law. I’m an adventurer. And adventurers, it seems to me, have a lot at stake in Antarctica.
Just this year, a Spanish expedition staged an incredible crossing of the continent powered solely by
windpower - in sixty-three days, the fastest ever. Over 4,500 kilometres on their wind powered sled that
may revolutionise polar transport … a fantastic story of endurance and of reliance upon sustainable
energy that captured the world’s imagination.’
Philips is founder of Icetrek, specialising in expeditions to the polar regions - Antarctica, Greenland,
Patagonia, Alaska, Iceland, Siberia and the Canadian High Arctic, he’s trekked them all. ‘Should there be
so much opposition by governments to private expeditioners?’ he asks. ‘I’ll be interested to hear the
responses of my fellow panellists!’
‘I believe adventure tourists can offer a very good perspective,’ comments Marcus Haward. ‘I think the
level of impact of small tourist ventures is minimal when compared to some of the major engineering
features of the bases and constructions being built. How do we address this? We need to put pressure
on our governments – let’s not have fifty seismic research programs, for instance, all working on the
same studies.’
‘I also see that of the 30,000 tourists that may visit Antarctica annually, 28,000 will return convinced
of the need for action in Antarctica. I’d argue that the treaty system has to come to terms with the
new Antarctica, not the old Antarctica.’
Craig Cormick, Bill Manhire and Bernadette Hince take part in "Writing the Unimaginable" in which writers
consider how one writes about Antarctica. How do writers describe the place? Or is it "unwritable?" Bill Manhire
likes the idea of the writer as bricoleur, comfortable with the unfamiliar – the scavenger sorting through
villagers’ trash cans and rearranging their trash into other shapes and forms before offering these back
for consideration and reappraisal. ‘It’s hard being a bricoleur scavenger in Antarctica - for the type
of writer I am, Antarctica is a huge challenge. There’s not that huge messiness to work in and respond
to, just the white blank space – an absence – talking back at you. Antarctica left me – both elated and
calm at the same time.’
‘Bipolar?’ Cormick interjects, helpfully.
‘Yes, yes!’
‘I had this experience of working with a glaciologist,’ Manhire continues ‘who was returning to New Zealand
at about the same time as I was. I asked him, what will you do when you return home? "A couple of weeks of data
reduction, then I’ll have a bloody good holiday," he replied. That was a good response, I thought. Whenever
anyone asked what I intended doing on my return – holiday? write? - "data reduction", I’d tell them.’
‘It’s very difficult to find metaphors and images for Antarctica, the only ones you can come up with are usually
completely banal. Like "icing". None of them fit … well they fit, but they don’t fit the quality of the images
you’re perceiving.’
‘Can you write about Antarctica without having been there?’ asks Craig Cormick, rhetorically. ‘How many times
did Shakespeare visit Denmark, do you think?’