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'Fast, Loose Beginnings is a racy anecdotal memoir of John Kinsella's meetings with the great and colourful men and women of poetry. Since his late teens, Kinsella has been rubbing shoulders and working with a host of acclaimed poets. The book opens with Kinsella on a bender in search of Dorothy Hewett, and goes on to tell the story of his friendships and massive fallings-out through the highs and lows of addiction.
'In this contentious account, Kinsella weaves his impressions of these figures personally, with a lively and incisive commentary on their place within the broader literary culture. Here, in good company, are intimate portraits of Dorothy Hewett, Les Murray, American literary critic Harold Bloom and French philosopher Jacques Derrida, as they have never been seen before. As a highly respected poet and critic, Kinsella brings clarity and biting irreverence to the writer's life, making this encounter with literature vividly alive.' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Dedication: To Tracy, as always...
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Memoir as Suicide
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , October vol. 14 no. 2 2010; 'Anecdotal by necessity, this essay through an act of confession considers the advantages and disadvantages of memoir as a genre for the contemporary writer who is also an academic. Employing the ruminative techniques of the lyric essay in order to question the reliance of confessional prose on anecdotal narrative, the prose style deliberately mingles genres in fragments that attempt both to stalk the subject - confessional ethics - and to free it from a narrative entrapment where content is supreme to textual expression. Considering also the notion of creative writing as therapy, and the vanity of the self-directed gaze, any resolutions are avoided as intimacies reveal the thorny negotiations of writing and revelation.' (Author's abstract) -
Cross-Pollinations
Susan Bradley Smith
(interviewer),
2007-2008
single work
interview
— Appears in: Meanjin , vol. 66-67 no. 4-1 2007-2008; (p. 45-51) -
Memoirs
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Times Literary Supplement , 10 November no. 5406 2006; (p. 27)
— Review of Fast, Loose Beginnings : A Memoir of Intoxications 2006 single work autobiography'I’ve got the kind of mind that jumps around, makes leaps to places it shouldn’t, then twists back to the starting point again.” So warns John Kinsella, Australian poet, academic, critic and editor, at the beginning of this memoir. It is a sentence that might chill the heart of a reader setting out to tackle the prose of a poet, with its promise of confusion and entanglement, but in fact this book is refreshingly lucid, at times almost childishly so.' (Introduction)
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Untitled
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: Voice : A Journal of Comment and Review , December no. 20 2006; (p. 42-44)
— Review of Fast, Loose Beginnings : A Memoir of Intoxications 2006 single work autobiography -
Untitled
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , October no. 17 2006; (p. 65)
— Review of Fast, Loose Beginnings : A Memoir of Intoxications 2006 single work autobiography
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Untitled
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , August vol. 86 no. 2 2006; (p. 35)
— Review of Fast, Loose Beginnings : A Memoir of Intoxications 2006 single work autobiography -
Behind the Ruckus: A Poet Ponders His Life
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 19 August 2006; (p. 12)
— Review of Fast, Loose Beginnings : A Memoir of Intoxications 2006 single work autobiography -
Very Well Then, I Contradict Myself
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 19-20 August 2006; (p. 32-33)
— Review of Fast, Loose Beginnings : A Memoir of Intoxications 2006 single work autobiography -
Skim
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 29 August vol. 124 no. 6535 2006; (p. 68)
— Review of Fast, Loose Beginnings : A Memoir of Intoxications 2006 single work autobiography ; Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs 2005 single work autobiography -
A Recollection of Vices and Voices
2006
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 23 September 2006; (p. 22)
— Review of Fast, Loose Beginnings : A Memoir of Intoxications 2006 single work autobiography -
Hooked on Verse
2006
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 5-6 August 2006; (p. 30-31) -
War, Blood, Courts ... It's Poets at War
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 8 August 2006; (p. 1, 6) The Age , 8 August 2006; (p. 5) -
War Erupts in Poet Versus Poet
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 9 August 2006; (p. 5) -
Poets Feud Over Expose on Youthful Excess
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: The Independent , 9 August 2006; (p. 24) -
Magistrate Agreed Emails Were Serious, Says Poet Under Siege
2006
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 9 August 2006; (p. 5) Bennie continues her coverage of the furore surrounding the publication of John Kinsella's Fast, Loose Beginnings : A Memoir of Intoxications. (For more in depth coverage see 'War, Blood, Courts ... It's Poets at War'.