ESSAYS
Introduction to TRANSQUEER
When we put out the call for TRANSQUEER we asked poets ‘to explore trans identities not as positions to defend but as modes of becoming and thus ways of being human’ (Joy Ladin, Trans Studies Quarterly, 2016: 640) and ‘to believe that the world is QUEER, or that oneself is, or both, [and that this] is a window of doubt through which all creative possibility comes into being’ (Mark Doty, The Art of Description: World into Word).
The Kindness of Strangers: On New Zealand’s Literary Journals
If I had to pick one word to describe the current landscape of New Zealand literary journals, it would be ‘wild’. Practitioners are free to form their own outlets where they see gaps they would like to be filled and this makes for an exciting, vibrant time.
Introduction to DIFFICULT
When people say ‘difficult’ and ‘poetry’ in the same sentence they are usually referring to the experience of reading a certain type of poem.
The Unaugmented Reality of Transgender Discrimination: ‘Do more, do better’
‘Do more, do better’ is a poem in four parts that explores transgender discrimination through a hypothetical augmented reality (AR) mobile app. The accompanying inked and embroidered art pieces reiterate key themes within the poem using a medium that could be considered an analogue to tech culture’s digital: craftivism.
Experimental Confessionalism: The Personal Turn in American Post-conceptual Poetry
Language poetry and conceptual poetry have both been enormously important movements in the development of contemporary experimental American poetry. They continue to be influential, however they are now both historical moments. This has led to some contemporary poets positioning themselves as post-language or post-conceptual.
Punk Calligraphy: A Primer on Asemic Writing and Scribbles
Growing up in Australia, I learned to associate the word ‘calligraphy’ with what is beautiful, perfect, virtuosic handwriting. However, there are other ways to interpret calli – the beauty – of handwriting. Punk calligraphy is my term for unhindered explorations of handwriting.
What the Repetitions of Poetry Might Help Us Remember about Home, Belonging and the Self
It’s mid January in Edinburgh. Patches of yesterday’s snow make florescent patterns on the future flowerbeds of the new old folks home across the road. It’s a home specifically for people with dementia. From the living room I can see that all of the rooms are, as yet, empty, but at night the lights are on and the lit stairwell and empty rooms have a waiting quality about them. The place actually looks quite nice.
Sonic Twin? A Poetics of Poetic Radio
When I reflect on the last decade of my engagement with poetry, I hear a presence shadowing many of my encounters. ‘Hear’ is an apt verb, because this presence is aural. What has so insistently stalked my encounters with poetry is the medium of radio, which acted as a bridge to poetry, catalysing my absorption of the form at a formative time.
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 comment
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