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'Dan Disney's highly original either, Orpheus remakes the villanelle. The 'sound-swarms' in this contemporary 'orphic' work riff laterally on received poetic and and philosophical ideas and incorporate fascinating shreds of thinking and saying. Rainer Maria Rilke and Søren Kierkegaard are the presiding spirits in the volume, and Disney is also in discussion about divergent ways of seeing and understanding with writers from all over the globe. This inventive poetry explores culture, authenticity and translation, and quizzes the lyric modes of apostrophe and song.
– PAUL HETHERINGTON
Dan Disney's either, Orpheus arrives with the force of a tropical weather event to deliver a series of pulsating shocks to the languages of everyday life. Neither strictly poetic nor purely philosophical, these deliriously pedagogical poems summon Rilke, Levertov, Ashbery, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Cage and multitudinous others to reconsider what we thought we knew of authorship, form, religion, phenomenology, and love. For Disney, the proper response to Bloom's anxiety of influence is 'a godless both/and' in which a series of 'elegiac anthroposcenes' transforms the labyrinth of solitude into the kinds of worlds that 'non-residents' might want to inhabit. Hospitable, demanding, festive and fearless, either, Orpheus passes through 'where previously it was not evident that anyone could find a passage.
– FIONA HILE
(Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Caesura and the Deforming Poem : Rupture as a Space for the Other
2022
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 37 no. 1 2022;'How does poetry deal with disability? At the level of theme and voice, Australian poetry – including the theorising and criticism of it – has rarely given overt priority to disabled experience. This essay seeks to contribute to a correction of this neglect by adapting the philosophical approach of Emmanuel Levinas, who wrote of the phenomenological preeminence of the Other. It considers how disability – defined expansively as a bodily otherness which also implicates the self – might become apprehended not only within thematic content, but through the disruptions of poetic form.' (Publication abstract)
-
Alex Kostas Reviews Dan Disney
2017
single work
essay
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 57 2017; 'Is the contemporary world really as confused and as doomed as it seems? In his latest book of poetry, either, Orpheus, Dan Disney tends towards the affirmative with his ‘elegiac anthroposcenes’ – assaulting scenes of twenty-first century demise – but he does not attempt to grapple with the problem alone. Instead he enlists the help of a stunning amount of other writers and thinkers.' (Introduction) -
Disney’s Poetics of Inhabited Impermanence
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , April vol. 20 no. 1 2016;
— Review of Either, Orpheus 2016 selected work poetry ; Report from a Border 2016 single work poetry -
Towards an Ethics of Poetry : Dominique Hecq Launches ‘either, Orpheus’ and ‘Report from a Border’ by Dan Disney
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , January - March no. 17 2016;
— Review of Either, Orpheus 2016 selected work poetry ; Report from a Border 2016 single work poetry -
[Review] Either, Orpheus by Dan Disney
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 30 no. 2 2016; (p. 427-428)
— Review of Either, Orpheus 2016 selected work poetry
-
Towards an Ethics of Poetry : Dominique Hecq Launches ‘either, Orpheus’ and ‘Report from a Border’ by Dan Disney
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , January - March no. 17 2016;
— Review of Either, Orpheus 2016 selected work poetry ; Report from a Border 2016 single work poetry -
Disney’s Poetics of Inhabited Impermanence
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , April vol. 20 no. 1 2016;
— Review of Either, Orpheus 2016 selected work poetry ; Report from a Border 2016 single work poetry -
[Review] Dan Disney, either, Orpheus
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 9 no. 1 2016;
— Review of Either, Orpheus 2016 selected work poetry -
[Review] Either, Orpheus by Dan Disney
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 30 no. 2 2016; (p. 427-428)
— Review of Either, Orpheus 2016 selected work poetry -
Alex Kostas Reviews Dan Disney
2017
single work
essay
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 57 2017; 'Is the contemporary world really as confused and as doomed as it seems? In his latest book of poetry, either, Orpheus, Dan Disney tends towards the affirmative with his ‘elegiac anthroposcenes’ – assaulting scenes of twenty-first century demise – but he does not attempt to grapple with the problem alone. Instead he enlists the help of a stunning amount of other writers and thinkers.' (Introduction) -
Caesura and the Deforming Poem : Rupture as a Space for the Other
2022
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 37 no. 1 2022;'How does poetry deal with disability? At the level of theme and voice, Australian poetry – including the theorising and criticism of it – has rarely given overt priority to disabled experience. This essay seeks to contribute to a correction of this neglect by adapting the philosophical approach of Emmanuel Levinas, who wrote of the phenomenological preeminence of the Other. It considers how disability – defined expansively as a bodily otherness which also implicates the self – might become apprehended not only within thematic content, but through the disruptions of poetic form.' (Publication abstract)
