ESSAYS
Introduction to NO THEME VII
Four years ago, writing an essay on David Malouf, I learned that Hawthorn Library held a copy of his first poetry collection, Bicycle and Other Poems (1970). I borrowed it, and, sadly, I returned it, too. Today, I rang the library to find the book.
Bone Shame: Grief, Te Ao Māori and the Liminal Space where Translation Fails
Wherever there is a need for translation there is discomfort – a chasm that must be scaffolded, or connected by branch, bond or bridge. There is almost a desperation in the need to both enlighten and to be understood.
Re-imagining Place: A Psychogeographic Reading of Carmine Frascarelli’s Sydney Road Poems
What can the original concepts underpinning psychogeography lend to a discussion of the relation between poetry and place in contemporary Australian poetics? Can the Paris-based wanderings of Guy Debord and the Situationist Internationale (SI) bring to the fore new meanings of being and creating in urban Australia? To delve into these questions this essay conducts a psychogeographic reading of Carmine Frascarelli’s 2016 book, Sydney Road Poems (Rabbit Poets Series), using key concepts put forth by Debord and the SI.
‘Geelong checks its modernist warranty’
In 1890, an American aeronaut named Millie Viola departs the Geelong showgrounds in a hot air balloon, in order to give an assembled crowd of onlookers a parachute jump display. Her ascension followed foiled attempts earlier in the week, but, according to the Geelong Advertiser’s archives, ‘Mademoiselle Viola’ at last ascends – to the gratification of ‘an increasingly dubious crowd’ – to around 5000 feet (1540 metres), and comes close to being swept into Corio Bay.
Posted in ESSAYS Tagged Anthony Lynch, Cameron Lowe, Corey Wakeling, Dick Diver, Jo Langdon, John Bechervaise, Maria Takolander, Millie Viola Leave a commentPHILIPPINES Editorial
To enter the mind of Philippine literature in English, it is important to note the evolution of English in the Philippines. We were colonised by Spain in 1521 and sold to America in 1898. According to eminent Filipino poet and scholar, Gémino Abad, Philippine poetry in English only took flight in the 1920s – it is a considerably young poetry, being less than a hundred years old.
Migration and Melancholia and Settler Discontentment
Filipino-ness is a weight I did not choose to be born with, but I carry on my back every day. As an immigrant to Australia, I am expected to uncritically wave the flag and do my birth country proud with my achievements; be the smiling migrant who hangs out at Australia Day parades, tags oneself on Facebook selfies beneath the Melbourne Central shot tower, lands a full-time office job, acquires property and authentic Louis Vuitton handbags, wears the trappings of aspirational middle-classness with the serenity of one who has ‘made it.’
Phenomenological: Musings on Contemporary Filipino Poetry
On my frequent trips back to Manila, I often marvel at the range of books and literary material now occupying the shelves of bookstores. There’s the usual fare of fiction thrillers, children’s books, academic and scholarly reference books, and religion-based how-to guides. There’s also a flood of young adult and poetry books.
SUBURBIA Editorial
‘There is an assumption that real art only comes from the city,’ writes Winnie Siulolovao Dunn in her 2017 essay, ‘FOB: Fresh off the Books’. Dunn is writing about the stigma of hailing from both Mt Druitt and Tonga. For the young Dunn, the ethnically diverse Western Suburbs of Sydney seem far removed from any cultural centre.
Ghost Flowers in the Word Machine: Poetry, Pessimism and Translation in the Age of Technology
I once read that the word ikebana (生け花), denoting the Japanese art of flower arrangement, can be roughly translated into English as ‘living flower,’ or ‘bringing life to the flowers.’ This summary sounds too easy, too graceful; there is an air of internet mythology to it, the truth of it smoothed and polished like a well-handled stone until it becomes convenient, small enough to tweet or swallow.
‘a homemade world’: On the Dandenong Line
Sometime in 1953 my parents bought a house in Clayton (Victoria, Australia), then on the edge of south-east Melbourne. We moved there from a decidedly different environment: the guest house that my Grandmother owned. This was on Beaconsfield Parade in South Melbourne.
Ken Bolton’s Suburbia, an Introduction
This is going to be a rather disordered list of undeveloped and not closely connected thoughts about ‘the suburban’ and its binary partner ‘the urban’. Not my thoughts, for the most part, but my list of thoughts generally available.
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