AustLit

'Bookbinders’ hands know things that other hands do not know. Familiar phrases such as ‘embodied cognition’, ‘muscle memory’ and ‘felt knowing’ attempt to express the exceptional qualities of people who hold knowledge in their body, the binder’s hands being one such example. This paper uses experimental writing to locate embodied knowledge in a material world through phenomenological structures of the given world.'  (Publication abstract)

'In this paper we explore the prose poem with reference to two fields of discourse. The first is a collection of scholarly literature that addresses the prose poem as a form. The second is taken from research interviews we conducted with poets from around the English-speaking world, where the tendency of the discourse is not so much form, but concerns of activity. From our archival and interview research, we conclude that writers in general, and poets in particular, have a practical need to remain mobile, active and flexible in the activity of writing. Those who reject the signpost ‘prose poem’ may be understood as committed to a focus on writing, not specifically on form; and to making what they can with what they have at hand.

'Just a couple of decades ago, prose poetry occupied a very minor corner of the poetry spectrum, although many major poets have published works in that form. As early as the mid-1970s, anthologies of prose poems were emerging in the USA, but they were preceded by work produced in Europe: the nineteenth-century Romantic Fragment (which was quickly adopted by British Romantics), and then the early twentieth-century experiments, and particularly the poetic avant garde in France. Now it is becoming (almost) a staple; across Australia and internationally, major poets are adding the prose poem form to their oeuvre, and though few dedicated publications yet exist, prose poems are salting the competitions, collections, anthologies and literary journals. International poets too are extending into the prose poem, exploring its affordances.'  (Introduction)

'Just a couple of decades ago, prose poetry occupied a very minor corner of the poetry spectrum, although many major poets have published works in that form. As early as the mid-1970s, anthologies of prose poems were emerging in the USA, but they were preceded by work produced in Europe: the nineteenth-century Romantic Fragment (which was quickly adopted by British Romantics), and then the early twentieth-century experiments, and particularly the poetic avant garde in France. Now it is becoming (almost) a staple; across Australia and internationally, major poets are adding the prose poem form to their oeuvre, and though few dedicated publications yet exist, prose poems are salting the competitions, collections, anthologies and literary journals. International poets too are extending into the prose poem, exploring its affordances.' (Monica Carroll, Shane Strange and Jen Webb: Introduction)

‘‘It’s the longest November on record, and the night sky is bright with swans and eagles …”

'Tract is the third anthology of prose poems from the Prose Poetry Project, a group of over twenty poets from across Australia, Singapore, and the UK who collaborate on writing in this fluid form. This anthology features two sequences of prose poems: one characterised by the single moment; the other reflecting longer durations. Placed on opposing pages, the conversation between the two echoes the vibrant and enduring poetic practice of this group.' (Publication summary)

'Under the bed.

Come on down here with me.

Crawl under.

'Two friends—one in the country, one in distress—communicate throughout Monica Carroll’s strangely compelling Isolator, a book of puzzles and performances, and screams in the night.' (Publication summary)