AustLit

Editor's note:

 For this collaboration, each poet initially sent three poems to the other, after which they wrote new poems responding to those received. This article presents the initial poems, followed by the responses, followed by reflective commentaries in which each poet discusses their experiences of and learning through this creative and dialogic process.

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The work presented here redevelops materials previously published in TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses special issue number 60 (https://textjournal.scholasticahq.com/article/23520-sites-and-citations). The previously-published work has been reconsidered and reframed in the light of more recent social, political, and historical developments, particularly those related to the ongoing impact of COVID-19 and the global climate crisis.

 

'This article explores the dialogue between two poets: DC Chambial, who lives in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and myself — Cameron Hindrum — living on the island state of Australia, Tasmania. This dialogue has been occurring broadly over the last couple of years, across which we have been swapping poems, responses to each other’s poems, and snippets of our lives and histories. For the specific purposes of this chapter, I have focused on the emergence of the poetic muse in each of us, and how — in different cultures, at different times, on different continents — the impulse of poetry has driven us both to explore our environments, our histories and the parameters of our knowledge of the world — or at least, our respective local areas within it. When asked about the constant of his island home (St Lucia) in his work, Derek Walcott replied that “What we can do as poets in terms of our honesty is simply to write within the immediate perimeter of not more than twenty miles really.” (Holland-Batt, 2021, 196) Consequently, in what follows I will be navigating the intersection of history, inspiration, context and creativity in providing a concise illustration of two poets in their place and time, as contrasting as they are, utilising poetic craft to examine respective environs that could not be more distinct from one another. To focalise this navigation further, I draw on two specific individual influences that have emerged: the work of William Wordsworth, and that of Philip Larkin. The contrasting poetics of these two giants of the canon provide illuminating and provocative punctuation for the aesthetic conversation between two poets on different sides of the planet, and their reflections on the craft of poetry.' 

(Introduction)