The Establishing of an Enzed Arts Establishment ...

"Poetry and fiction should, in my view, remain completely exempt from State patronage – except for the recording function provided by the State Literary Fund. They are of value only when they are the work of independent artists. Put a novelist on the payroll, and sooner or later you turn him into a tomcat ... that comes to the kitchen door for its milk and in return begs prettily or catches mice." ['The Culture Industry,' 1956]

 

'Note on the State Literary Fund' [1947]

Here is a piece of wisdom

I learnt at my mother's knee:

The mushroom grows in the open,

The toadstool under the tree.

 

~ NZ poet A.R.D. Fairburn, opposing the Fraser Government's extension of the state into art funding