AustLit

'Following a long creative practice of the sonnet (La Leçon d'Otilia, 1995), Anonymous of Troy inaugurates a new exploration of doubleness and overlay in terms of place, time and feeling, sustained by an equal doubleness in terms of form and language. The scene is Çanakkale, Turkey, facing Gelibolu on the other shore of the Dardanelles. But Gallipoli is a piece of ANZAC peering through the mirror of Port Jackson. The scene is Abydos facing Sestos, where Hero is still waiting for Leander. But the scene is also Truva, facing the infinite a few miles south, where Johnny Anadolu got the better of Achilles Johnson. The worldwide scene is then, thousands of years ago, as primitive as Parramatta today, the girl of both times will recognize herself in the TV commercial. Isolettric verse, sound play, anagrams, are cadenced to protect modernity against its ageing.' (Publication summary)