"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
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