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Notes
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Many of the poems which appear in this volume were previously published in Australian Poetry Now, Contempa, Leatherjacket, Mok, Poetry Australia, Poetry Magazine (New Poetry), Westerly, and in the anti-war anthology We Took Their Orders and Are Dead.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Confessional Surrealist Feminist : Vicki Viidikas’s Poetics and Politics
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 2 no. 18 2018;'This essay seeks to illuminate the entwined aesthetics of Vicki Viidikas’s poetry. Viidikas was a Sydney poet: she lived in Balmain, and spent long periods of time in India later in life. She was part of the generation of ‘68, which revelled in the countercultural spirit of the 1960s and 70s. Viidikas published three books of poetry in her lifetime: Condition Red (1973), Knäbel (1978), and India Ink (1984), as well as a book of short stories and prose poems, Wrappings (1974). Between 1985 and 1998 she published only a handful of poems in journals; India Ink would be her last book.
'The essay uses formative aesthetic, political, and material influences to read Viidikas’s work from 1973 to 1998. I argue that there are three major aspects in Viidikas’s poetry: the confessional, the surrealist, and the feminist. By contextualising her work in the confessional poetry genre, the surrealism of André Breton, and second wave feminism, I show that these aspects interact and overlap in subtle ways in her poems. Viidikas was steeped in feminist ideals for women’s writing, and was committed to representing female subjectivity in highly personal and uncensored ways. I show that in her poetry, a feminist ethos energises both her confessional voice and her surrealism. I also pay attention to the material circumstances of her poetry’s production, and the social and aesthetic practices of the generation of ‘68. This situated reading of Viidikas’s poetry allows me to look to the last 14 years of her life, when she retreated from publishing. While critics typically focus on her drug addiction in explaining her later marginalisation, I posit that the anti-capitalist values that Viidikas absorbed in her youth played a significant role in her withdrawal, in the 1980s and 90s, from the literary networks that had previously sustained her.' (Publication abstract)
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Untitled
1985
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Best of the Ear : The Ear in a Wheatfield, 1973-76 : A Portrait of a Magazine 1985; (p. 77-78) -
Goodbye Prince Hamlet: The New Australian Women's Poetry
1975
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin Quarterly , Winter vol. 34 no. 2 1975; (p. 169-179) Quilt : A Collection of Prose 1985; (p. 66-73)
— Review of Tactics 1974 selected work poetry ; Condition Red 1973 selected work poetry ; Come to Me My Melancholy Baby 1975 selected work single work poetry prose ; Mother I'm Rooted : An Anthology of Australian Women Poets 1975 anthology poetry ; Living Alone Without a Dictionary 1974 selected work poetry ; Madam Blackboots 1974 selected work poetry -
Untitled
1975
single work
review
— Appears in: Blacksmith , vol. 2 no. 1 1975; (p. 25-26)
— Review of Condition Red 1973 selected work poetry -
Three Kinds of Exploration
1974
single work
review
— Appears in: Makar , February vol. 9 no. 3 1974; (p. 45-48)
— Review of Condition Red 1973 selected work poetry ; The Paradise Poems 1973 selected work poetry ; Sediments of Seclusion 1973 selected work poetry
-
Three Kinds of Exploration
1974
single work
review
— Appears in: Makar , February vol. 9 no. 3 1974; (p. 45-48)
— Review of Condition Red 1973 selected work poetry ; The Paradise Poems 1973 selected work poetry ; Sediments of Seclusion 1973 selected work poetry -
Untitled
1975
single work
review
— Appears in: Blacksmith , vol. 2 no. 1 1975; (p. 25-26)
— Review of Condition Red 1973 selected work poetry -
Goodbye Prince Hamlet: The New Australian Women's Poetry
1975
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin Quarterly , Winter vol. 34 no. 2 1975; (p. 169-179) Quilt : A Collection of Prose 1985; (p. 66-73)
— Review of Tactics 1974 selected work poetry ; Condition Red 1973 selected work poetry ; Come to Me My Melancholy Baby 1975 selected work single work poetry prose ; Mother I'm Rooted : An Anthology of Australian Women Poets 1975 anthology poetry ; Living Alone Without a Dictionary 1974 selected work poetry ; Madam Blackboots 1974 selected work poetry -
Untitled
1985
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Best of the Ear : The Ear in a Wheatfield, 1973-76 : A Portrait of a Magazine 1985; (p. 77-78) -
Confessional Surrealist Feminist : Vicki Viidikas’s Poetics and Politics
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 2 no. 18 2018;'This essay seeks to illuminate the entwined aesthetics of Vicki Viidikas’s poetry. Viidikas was a Sydney poet: she lived in Balmain, and spent long periods of time in India later in life. She was part of the generation of ‘68, which revelled in the countercultural spirit of the 1960s and 70s. Viidikas published three books of poetry in her lifetime: Condition Red (1973), Knäbel (1978), and India Ink (1984), as well as a book of short stories and prose poems, Wrappings (1974). Between 1985 and 1998 she published only a handful of poems in journals; India Ink would be her last book.
'The essay uses formative aesthetic, political, and material influences to read Viidikas’s work from 1973 to 1998. I argue that there are three major aspects in Viidikas’s poetry: the confessional, the surrealist, and the feminist. By contextualising her work in the confessional poetry genre, the surrealism of André Breton, and second wave feminism, I show that these aspects interact and overlap in subtle ways in her poems. Viidikas was steeped in feminist ideals for women’s writing, and was committed to representing female subjectivity in highly personal and uncensored ways. I show that in her poetry, a feminist ethos energises both her confessional voice and her surrealism. I also pay attention to the material circumstances of her poetry’s production, and the social and aesthetic practices of the generation of ‘68. This situated reading of Viidikas’s poetry allows me to look to the last 14 years of her life, when she retreated from publishing. While critics typically focus on her drug addiction in explaining her later marginalisation, I posit that the anti-capitalist values that Viidikas absorbed in her youth played a significant role in her withdrawal, in the 1980s and 90s, from the literary networks that had previously sustained her.' (Publication abstract)