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Ghost Flowers in the Word Machine : Poetry, Pessimism and Translation in the Age of Technology single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2018... 2018 Ghost Flowers in the Word Machine : Poetry, Pessimism and Translation in the Age of Technology
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'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. I don’t know Japanese, and even if I did, I doubt whether my clumsy English renderings would do any more justice to the words’ original elegance: to the 生 rooted in life, meaning raw, growing, being born – to the bloom of the 花 recalling cherry blossoms, paper petals, grass. But somehow, despite my ignorance or because of it, I find joy in the deconstruction of the word, in the Googling of its kanji, the deciphering, the re-making. The word ikebana is a little poem, and I am its fumbling, ill-equipped translator.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Cordite Poetry Review Suburbia no. 84 1 February 2018 12858164 2018 periodical issue

    'We begin with two recent voices in Cordite Poetry Review.

    '‘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. Indeed, as Dunn recounts, it took her twenty-one years to write and own ‘the literature of being a Fob in Mounty County.’

    'The second voice is Corey Wakeling’s, and it comes from his brilliantly provocative review of Puncher & Wattmann’s Contemporary Australian Poetry. Here, Wakeling argues that ‘the suburban is a preeminent register of the Australian contemporary’ and that ‘much Australian poetry already seems embedded in the suburban condition.’ For Wakeling, the huge CAP volume is a testament to the various ways that contemporary poetry is implicated in or grappling with notions and legacies of suburbia.' (Lachlan Brown and Nathanael O'Reilly : Editorial Introduction) 

         2018
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Last amended 8 Feb 2018 11:49:17
http://cordite.org.au/essays/ghost-flowers-in-the-word-machine/ Ghost Flowers in the Word Machine : Poetry, Pessimism and Translation in the Age of Technologysmall AustLit logo Cordite Poetry Review
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