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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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‘Unconscionable Mystification’? : Rooms, Spaces and the Prose Poem
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: New Writing , vol. 12 no. 3 2015; (p. 265-281) 'Since the 19th century, when a number of French writers – most conspicuously Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud – introduced what we may think of as the modern prose poem into European literature, prose poetry has been part of a debate about the contemporary usefulness of existing literary modes and genres. While early French practitioners partly used the form to problematise traditional poetic prosody, once this aim was achieved prose poetry remained a significant contemporary literary form. In the context of contemporary developments in prose poetry, this article discusses John Frow's observations that texts are able to perform or modify a genre, or only partly fulfil generic expectations, or be comprised of more than one genre. It also discusses the authors Rooms and Spaces project, which explores ways in which prose poetry may be considered ‘poetic’; how it may be room-like and condensed; or open and highly suggestive (sometimes both at once); and how prose poetry is intertextual and polysemous. Prose poetry may be generically problematic but the authors suggest that this may make it an exemplary post-postmodern form; and that reading prose poetry may provide significant insights into how unstable genre boundaries really are.' (Publication abstract) -
To See : A Literary Ecological Point of View (Some Australian Examples of Ecocritical Creative Writing, With Particular Emphasis on the Prose Poem)
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 20 2013;‘An ecologically-informed point of view’, says Wendy Wheeler (2006: 91), is one 'that sees all life, including culture, as naturally co-evolved and interdependent’. We can be unconscious of the fact that we are ‘embodied creatures’ for whom ‘the natural world … is the ground-state’ (Wheeler 2006: 91). Constantly distracted by the mass of human-engineered activity, we have lost, Clive Hamilton says, our imagination, and the imagery to inspire an appropriate responsiveness (2005: 191). Beverley Farmer’s innovative ecocritical writing in ‘Mouths of gold’ (2005), with its nonlinear, associative structure and hybrid nature enfolding the prose poem, reveals her exemplary practice of seeing what is. Like the prose poem, the essay without a straightforward, linear structure requires focus and time to make your way through it and to understand what it is offering. John Tomlinson has noted that time itself is neither linear-progressive nor cyclic; it has accidents and surprises in store and is constituted by profound rifts and forks (2007). These rifts in time make us aware of the contingency of our existence. Survival and successful adaptation in environments that are in crisis in the early twenty-first century will require a constant reflexive re-balancing, an experimental approach, a strategy of improvisation. ' (Author's abstract)
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To See : A Literary Ecological Point of View (Some Australian Examples of Ecocritical Creative Writing, With Particular Emphasis on the Prose Poem)
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 20 2013;‘An ecologically-informed point of view’, says Wendy Wheeler (2006: 91), is one 'that sees all life, including culture, as naturally co-evolved and interdependent’. We can be unconscious of the fact that we are ‘embodied creatures’ for whom ‘the natural world … is the ground-state’ (Wheeler 2006: 91). Constantly distracted by the mass of human-engineered activity, we have lost, Clive Hamilton says, our imagination, and the imagery to inspire an appropriate responsiveness (2005: 191). Beverley Farmer’s innovative ecocritical writing in ‘Mouths of gold’ (2005), with its nonlinear, associative structure and hybrid nature enfolding the prose poem, reveals her exemplary practice of seeing what is. Like the prose poem, the essay without a straightforward, linear structure requires focus and time to make your way through it and to understand what it is offering. John Tomlinson has noted that time itself is neither linear-progressive nor cyclic; it has accidents and surprises in store and is constituted by profound rifts and forks (2007). These rifts in time make us aware of the contingency of our existence. Survival and successful adaptation in environments that are in crisis in the early twenty-first century will require a constant reflexive re-balancing, an experimental approach, a strategy of improvisation. ' (Author's abstract)
-
‘Unconscionable Mystification’? : Rooms, Spaces and the Prose Poem
2015
single work
criticism
— Appears in: New Writing , vol. 12 no. 3 2015; (p. 265-281) 'Since the 19th century, when a number of French writers – most conspicuously Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud – introduced what we may think of as the modern prose poem into European literature, prose poetry has been part of a debate about the contemporary usefulness of existing literary modes and genres. While early French practitioners partly used the form to problematise traditional poetic prosody, once this aim was achieved prose poetry remained a significant contemporary literary form. In the context of contemporary developments in prose poetry, this article discusses John Frow's observations that texts are able to perform or modify a genre, or only partly fulfil generic expectations, or be comprised of more than one genre. It also discusses the authors Rooms and Spaces project, which explores ways in which prose poetry may be considered ‘poetic’; how it may be room-like and condensed; or open and highly suggestive (sometimes both at once); and how prose poetry is intertextual and polysemous. Prose poetry may be generically problematic but the authors suggest that this may make it an exemplary post-postmodern form; and that reading prose poetry may provide significant insights into how unstable genre boundaries really are.' (Publication abstract)