Surface poetry that shocks and disturbs TRANTER'S ANTHOLOGY has been out for a little while now, but it is illuminating to look at it in relation to John Forbes's verse collection, his first full-length volume. The anthology has proved its essential purpose, by drawing attention to a grouping of poets largely concerned with using language in a more open-ended way than has traditionally been the case in Australia. Although not all the poems included follow the same guidelines, they do pretty much share the feeling of "the poem is not virtually contained in its opening", as is the case with so many "well made" poems in the English tradition. Clearest ancestors here are the 1950s and 1960s Americans, from the Black Mountain school of Olson, Duncan and Creeley, to the "deep image" writers like Bly and the. Lower East Side New Yorkers Frank O'Hara and Ted Berrigan, with a bit of John Ashbery thrown in. Translated into Australian, these ' movements and trends have given a much needed shock and challenge to our verse. "The New Australian Poetry,' if it does nothing else, provides a fairly cohesive rundown on the new Followers. It is, in essence, a Tranter grouping, a rollcall of his friends. It pretends to some historical survey but you don't have to believe that any anthology that omits Richard Tipping, Jan Harry and Philip Roberts from a study of "modernism" in the 1970s is tilting dangerously. If it then includes a completely marginal writer like Clive Faust, the boat is certainly rocking. The introduction is pompous and fuzzy, too, but none of these things fully impairs the book's sense of vigorous discovery and the delight in exploring new ways. John Forbes is, with Tranter himself, one of the key figures in the new grouping. They call themselves "the generation of '68" but as they leave out so many key figures of that generation I think another name should be found for them. I would be tempted to call them the New Vitalists. "Vitalist" is a word associated with Norman Lindsay and his 1920s-1930s poet followers. They sought a colorful, busy-surfaced poetry, in keeping with their aim at celebrating hedonist vitality and devil-may-care; it was a costume party philosophy, initially STALIN'S HOLIDAYS, by John Forbes (Transit Poetry; $3.95). THE NEW AUSTRALIAN POETRY, edited by John Tranter (Makar Press; $22.50 hard cover; $12.95 paperback). THOMAS SHAPCOTT defiant in its non-seriousness. It sought to shock and outrage bourgeois complacency. Its favorite word was "gay". 'Stalin's Holidays' is a key manifesto of the New Vitalists, make no mistake about it. After Tranter's "Crying in Early Infancy" it is probably the most important book of this new "generation". I suspect it also marks something of an end. The old Vitalist qualities are here, though of course transferred some 40 or 50 years on: a surface of cheeky, busy bravado; a deliberate refusal to be "serious"; much use of gaudy, colorful effects for their own sake it is a poetry full of outrageous similes "like a trashy hair-do in the surf. It is a "now" poetry, concerned with the moment, the process of discovering the floating world of the moment. At its best it is zestful, witty, chatty and curiously disturbing. It puts everything on the surface to discover how much we our society is merely surface. Some of the poems end up a sort of spaced-out vertigo, too much spatter and scatter. But the best, such as "Blonde & Aussie' and Up, up, home and away', are brilliant, witty, and quite accurate in capturing a peculiarly Australian twang. Indeed, 'Up, up, home and away, which transfers a Bali holiday to local equivalent, is so accurate you grin with recognition. Like John Forbes's earlier poem Toui Heads and Two To Do Them it seems a key poem of its period. This is one of the first titles from the new Sydney publisher, Transit Poetry (John Tranter again). Production is neat and sharp. THOMAS SHAPCOTT is a well-known poet and critic