AustLit

'The Latin infinitive speculari, from which we derive the English verb to speculate, has a number of meanings: to spy, to look out and to examine. In the case of the sonnet, it is not simply that such poems look out, examine and conjecture upon an external universe. Rather, sonnets — with their capacity to ‘turn over’ an idea or experience through the tradition of the volta (Fussell 1979, Spiller 1992) — are particularly suited to solipsistic introspection; a speculative investigation of the poet-narrator’s own desires, shortcomings and hopes for the future. This paper examines the relationship between form, meaning and subjective introspection in the sonnets of Petrarch and Shakespeare (Engle 1898, Durbrow 1996, King 2005, Martin 2010). Acknowledging recent interest in the sonnet in the wake of New Formalism (Caplan 2012), it is argued that the work of these master-poets in this genre sets a benchmark for later sonneteers to continue in the tradition of poetic self-speculation.'

'In the post-enlightenment era, the division between poetry and ‘truth’ has largely been framed in terms of scientistic versions of truth. In the modern era, this has manifested itself in a number of ways: in the adoption of ‘experimental’ as a metaphorical term for innovative poetic practices, and in the positivist framework for the notion of ‘progression’ in the arts generally. In this paper I seek to establish a frame for speculative poetry that is invested in myth conceived of as a resource of language. Following Ronald Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon, I trace the development of James Lovelock’s ‘Gaia hypothesis’ as having its roots in eighteenth century mythopoeic practice, and also the foundations of scientism in the myth of atomism. I argue more broadly for the importance of poetry as a form of speculation predicated on myth, and that this aspect of poetry can be of vital importance in facing large-scale challenges such as global warming.' (Introduction)

'Very little is known about Louis-Jacques-Napoléon Bertrand, whose literary pseudonym was Aloysius Bertrand. His biography consists of a series of fragments pieced together and is recited in scholarship and various encyclopedia. He was born on 20 April 1807 in Ceva, Piedmont, Italy and died when he was 34 years old on 29 April 1841 in Paris. In 1815 his family moved to Dijon, an ancient city that fascinated Bertrand, where he studied at the Collège Royal from 1818 to 1826. He contributed literary works to a local newspaper, which he managed, and — following a letter from Victor Hugo — travelled to Paris in 1828. There he met a variety of literary figures, including the poet Émile de Saint-Amand Deschamps and the famous literary critic, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve. Failing to establish himself among the Paris literati, he returned to Dijon and became involved once more with newspaper publishing. His journalism reflected his strong Republican views. In 1933 he returned to Paris and probably in that year completed Gaspard de la nuit — Keith Waldrop says it was ‘written over a period of years’ (Baudelaire 2009: xi) — as well as a play, Peter Waldeck ou la chute d’un homme. He proposed unsuccessfully to a woman named Célestine. From 1835 to 1837 he borrowed a considerable amount of money before contracting tuberculosis, becoming seriously ill. He was hospitalised for extended periods and eventually died of the combined effects of the disease and starvation. His ground-breaking Gaspard was published posthumously in 1842 in an error-filled volume, selling 20 copies.' (Introduction)

'This paper explores a range of poetic strategies used to express changing perceptions and experiences of place. It engages with ‘poetry as speculation’, as a theme that provokes reflection on ways in which poetic language enacts thought and feeling — such as surmise and surprise – in a manner not limited to presenting content that might already be considered ‘speculative’. Poems by Rosemary Dobson and Meg Mooney and a prose poem by Stephanie Green are discussed, to explore evocations of place and expressions of mood as diverse as wondering, questioning, and affirming the strange conditionality of things. The paper draws on a range of ideas from studies in poetics about poetic composition, to help analyse the ways in which these poems create dramatic tensions and refresh ways of seeing, speaking and understanding.' (Introduction)

'Charles Bukowski called poetry ‘what happens when nothing else can’. But what happens when poetry can’t? Through autoethnography and poetic inquiry, this article considers visual writing and alogia, which in psychiatric discourses represents paucity of speech and language indicative of thought disorder. I write as a poet who experiences mild alogia during bipolar depressive phases. While generally manageable, depression for me often forecloses my usual word-based writing practices. Visual poetry, however, remains possible; it becomes the poetry that ‘nothing’ (depression’s void) makes happen. Connecting this phenomenon with research into writing-as-thinking, where poetry facilitates various specialist thought practices, alogia and related negative psychiatric symptoms feasibly reflect thought processes exceeding word-based communication. Such ‘disordered’ thinking may thus be recognised as activating what Keats termed negative capability: poetic reaching through uncertainty towards the un/thinkable (the not-yet-thought, but thinkable). My article supports this argument through analysis of my own and other writers’ visual poems.' (Introduction)

'French poet, Jean-Marie Gleize, is better known in French than English. However, over the last decade, scholarship has begun to emerge in English about his postpoésie writing and his recent poetry collection, Tarnac: A Preparatory Act has been translated into English. In his Oxford talk, ‘Democracy’, Gleize outlines what the Tarnac collection develops: why a ‘preparatory act’ of resistance is now a musical question — one of resonance. Gleize’s acts of writing he calls dispositif writing and the approach resonates with poet Charles Olson’s ideas outlined in his Black Mountain College Charter, The Act of Writing in the Context of Post-Modern Man. Olson’s ideas are often assumed to pertain solely to breath and voice, owing to his infamous ‘Projective Verse’ manifesto, but a lot of his work was about the act of inscribing. By looking to Performance Writing, a field which first emerged as a course and drew on Olson’s charter, the ideas pertaining to the act and action of inscription are illustrated. Additionally, by relating dispositif writing to performance writing dispositions and the ideas inherent in Olson’s charter, the validity of all three approaches illustrate how the ‘act of’ and the ‘act to’ inscribing spaces within the line and sign is a form of poetics, albeit, post-poetry.' (Introduction)

'In this paper I examine three recent performance works where poetic language has been extended beyond words to evoke the body in unusual, speculative and potentially transformative ways. The works I will reference are: The Howling Girls (2018), an opera by Adena Jacobs and Damien Ricketson; Speechless (2019), an opera created by Cat Hope; and a series of participatory performances by Catherine Clover. The works all have in common a goal to push poetic language to extreme or unusual places as a way to explore subjects such as loss, trauma and fear, but also possibility, transformation and renewal. The paper will analyse techniques used by the artists; discuss the impact and effect of the various approaches; and argue for the way performance works are uniquely placed to employ poetic language in this way.' (Introduction)