AustLit
Latest Issues
Contents
- Golden Spaces, single work essay
- Art, Design and the Domestic : David Traub in Conversation with Jen Webb, single work interview
- Birds, Perchingi"Because it is bent,", single work poetry
- Absencei"These indentations", single work poetry
- One Plani"I’ll arrive at the monastery with my hair like wind-matted", single work poetry
- Alms Round, Sarnathi"I smell figs, pomegranates, apples; onions and spices", single work poetry
- The Pasti"Hard to believe I loved Siddhattha once; now I stare", single work poetry
- In Rajagahai"Sariputta and Mogallana are talking on the Four", single work poetry
- Anguliamali"Angulimala, thug and robber, who once wore", single work poetry
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That Grave Pleasure,
single work
criticism
'This paper argues that gravity is often opposed to lightness in a conceptual manoeuvre reminiscent of the binaries of a metaphysics of presence (the latter as interrogated by Derrida; see generally 1997). In this paradigm, lightness operates akin to the ‘origin’ or presence, and is deemed to have been contaminated by the arrival of weight, the latter framed as threat to this (presence)/lightness. The paper challenges this conceptualisation, one that arguably dominates quotidian attitudes to the body and its movement capacities. It proposes instead that gravity can be read ‘deconstructively’—in other words, that lightness and weight emerge from and produce one another, and that weight always already operates, and therefore includes lightness. In order to inhabit this desiring-body (a body affected by gravity), particular framings of the body’s internal structures can permit a harnessing of gravity’s vectors of attraction, enabling what the author terms ‘a rigorous laziness’. The latter would involve both an initial attitude and a practice that eschews vocabularies of ‘force’ and ‘effort’, in favour of a ‘close reading’ of structural veracities, engaging strategically with, rather than against, them, in an approach akin to deconstruction’s reading along with a text. Drawing ekphrastically on the structural suggestiveness of Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic and arborescent lenses, the paper finally contends that both these models are at work in human bodies, and that they operate in mutually generative ways. Taken up, this thinking may extend what the human body can do, and, most importantly, its pleasure in such doings.' (Publication summary)
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Acts of Creative Identity : Ten Asian Poets Writing in English,
single work
criticism
'Writers realise their creative practice only through the physical loci of their bodies. While writing is a solitary task, unless writers are contented with being lone voices crying in separate wildernesses, they must go beyond their embodied selves into the community. For writers writing from bilingual or multilingual backgrounds, their acts of creative identity usually require them to negotiate between two or more communities. This paper focuses on how Asian poets writing in English identify with their local, ethnic, national and/or international communities in terms of their readership. It draws upon interview excerpts collected during fieldwork to five Asian places (Macao, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and India). Though ten poets from each location were interviewed from October 2009 to November 2010, the paper will only discuss the creative practice of two poets from each place. The data show that there is fluidity in identification with writers finding their own bearings at different loci of a virtual literary terrain where boundaries exist in a somewhat diffuse manner; perhaps it is this very diffusion that allows them to share their embodied poetic knowledge(s) in a distributed manner so that the creativity of the global poetic community exceeds that of each locale and each poet.' (Publication abstract)
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An Open Heart and Mind,
single work
criticism
'Jennifer Harrison visited the University of Canberra and presented a seminar to students and staff about her creative practice as a poet. Following are edited excerpts from the seminar, which took place on 25 August 2011, and a discussion with Paul Hetherington.' (Publication summary)
- Draini"While rain makes the earth aquatic,", single work poetry
- Beautiful Weedsi"The beautiful weeds are blazing on Clontarf Hill;", single work poetry
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Embodying Three Aspects of My Self through A/R/Tography : A Personal Polyphonous Perspective,
single work
criticism
'In this essay I set out to explain my research as an embodied aesthetic experience. In my PhD study, Creative River Journeys—an inquiry into postgraduate education and practice-led research—I have adopted a research methodology called a/r/tography (Irwin & de Cosson 2004). This asks that my researcher identity embody the multiple roles of artist, researcher and teacher. This embodiment is not an abstract adoption of a research methodology, but a deliberate attempt on my part to confront the disparity between these roles in my past practice. I share insights that I have arrived at in relation to these three deeply interrelated aspects of my a/r/tographical self: the artist self—through poetic inquiry (Prendergast, Leggo & Sameshima 2009a); the researcher self—through the River Journey reflective practice; and the teacher self—through, for example, unexpected reciprocal mentorship in the project.' (Publication abstract)
- The Common Miraclei"The bookshelves stand like walls around their bed,", single work poetry
- Streetscape, London Circa 1212 A.D.i"In Foster Lane Maud takes her bucket,", single work poetry
- How to Stopi"Can you ask, she asks, what is an imaginary?", single work poetry
- My Namei"is borrowed from a saint. A saint is", single work poetry
- Peti"He wanted a parrot, not a pigeon. But pigeons were cheap,", single work poetry