Vicki Viidikas



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.

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Fuori le mura: Seven Vicki Viidikas Poems

Vicki Viidikas’s first book Condition Red (UQP, 1973) – which most likely took its title from Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove (1964) in which Condition Red means war – burst with unsettling depictions of contemporary life and the status of women, a year after Equal Pay had become law.

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They Always Come

When they have taken away the childish laughter and dog-eared books, peeled off the last much embrace, given the girl her lipsticks, hair rinses and pills When they have poured back the drinks as long as empty deserts, returned the …

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Foreword Viidikas: Reintroduction of the ’68 Poet

John Tranter, renowned Australian poet and occasional but incisive chronicler of the driving forces behind those Australian poets now classified as ‘The Generation of ‘68’ once wrote that the ‘Generation of ‘68’ was all about:

‘not the replacing of the old by the new (which soon becomes the established), but by the continual recognition of the need to ‘make it new’, to break down the urge to establish reputations and an entrenched position.’

Anecdotes surround Vicki Viidikas. None is definitive.

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Chair Insider: An Intimate Access in Photo Narratives

Andrew Sayers, director of the National Portrait Gallery, wrote of my work, ‘Trust is an important quality in portraiture. Trust is self evident in Juno Gemes’ photographic portraits’. The portraits published here were created in trust with literary friends.

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Vicki Viidikas Rediscovered: Ali Alizadeh’s Q&A with Barry Scott

In May 2010, Melbourne-based publisher Transit Lounge will release a much-anticipated collection of published and unpublished poetry and prose by the iconic Generation of '68 poet and l'enfant terrible, Vicki Viidikas (1948-1998). The book, simply titled Vicki Viidikas: New and Rediscovered, has been edited by Transit Lounge co-founder Barry Scott. Cordite's reviews editor Ali Alizadeh spoke to him about Viidikas, her iconoclastic work, her unconventional life, and her legacy.

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