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The Distant Present : Growing Up in Australia single work   autobiography  
Issue Details: First known date: 1984... 1984 The Distant Present : Growing Up in Australia
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Notes

  • Paper presented at the 3rd Salamanca Arts Festival in Hobart on 26 November 1983

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Alternative title: The Distant Present
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Island Magazine no. 18/19 Autumn-Winter 1984 Z593937 1984 periodical issue 1984 pg. 62-65
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Displacements 2 : Multicultural Storytellers Sneja Gunew (editor), Geelong : Deakin University Press , 1987 Z373219 1987 anthology poetry short story extract prose criticism biography autobiography Geelong : Deakin University Press , 1987 pg. 124-129
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon First Rights : A Decade of Island Magazine Island Magazine Andrew Sant (editor), Michael Denholm (editor), Elwood : Greenhouse Publications , 1989 Z468801 1989 anthology poetry short story criticism autobiography Elwood : Greenhouse Publications , 1989 pg. 86-92
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Dimitris Tsaloumas : A Voluntary Exile : Selected Writings on His Life and Work Helen Nickas (editor), Brighton : Owl Publishing , 1999 Z668595 1999 anthology criticism biography interview review 'This edited volume on acclaimed Greek-Australian poet Dimitris Tsaloumas is a ‘polyphonic’ response to his work, consisting of essays, reviews and interviews . The book is bilingual (English and Greek) and begins with an introduction by the editor, in English and Greek. The pieces that follow are by Greek diasporic critics (Helen Nickas, Mimis Sophocleous, Michael Tsianikas and Stathis Gauntlett) while English-speaking critics from Australia, England and the U.S.A include Judith Rodriguez, David Tacey, John Barnes, Matt Simpson, John Lucas, Gillian Bouras and Djelal Kadir. The book includes two reflective pieces by the poet himself and two interviews, all providing a fascinating insight into the poet and his work.' (Publisher's blurb) Brighton : Owl Publishing , 1999 pg. 20-28
    Note: With title The Distant Present

Works about this Work

In Transit : Migration and Memory in the Writings of Martin Johnston and Dimitris Tsaloumas Julian Tompkin , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;

'In August 1964 Martin Johnston boarded the Ellinis in the port of Piraeus, destined for Sydney, Australia, bringing to an end his 14-year estrangement from the land of his birth. Johnston, who had lived abroad most of his life in England and Greece, would return as a literal migrant to his own country. It was a theme that would prove fecund and deeply allegorical for the then 17-year-old son of authors George Johnston and Charmian Clift, later manifesting in his poetic works such as In Transit: a sprawling 14-part paean to Johnston’s immutable sense of displacement.

'A little over a decade before, in 1952, Greek poet Dimitris Tsaloumas would complete the same metamorphic journey, fleeing his Dodecanese homeland and arriving in Melbourne, Australia where he would take up the uneasy mantle of Australia’s Hellenic poet in exile. Despite parabolic overtures of assimilation, paradoxical themes of longing and dislocation pockmark Tsaloumas’s vast canon, tethering an uneasy union between his two divergent worlds both ancient and contemporary; familiar and profoundly alien.

'This essay explores the lives and comparative themes of exile in the works of both Johnston and Tsaloumas—writers who both identified as Xenos, a Greek word that translates as both ‘guest’ and ‘stranger’—and investigates the often incorporeal, irredeemable and contradictory natures of nostalgia and belonging.' (Publication abstract)

A Lens on Leros : The Poet as Iconographer Jena Woodhouse , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;

'The focus of this essay is on the presence and significance of Leros in the poetry of Dimitris Tsaloumas. Of particular interest is the quality and agency of light; and the inclusion of Greek Orthodox references and imagery in many of his poems. These corporeal and incorporeal aspects of that island are those which Tsaloumas internalised as integral elements of his identity long before he embarked on what was to be a protracted period of voluntary exile. During his years in Australia, which contributed new input to enrich and expand his personal and poetic consciousness, Tsaloumas never lost sight of his original reference points: the natural and cultural context of Leros, and the spiritual precepts with which he was imbued by the Greek Orthodox Church.' (Publication abstract)

Tsaloumas and the Translation of Experience Jena Woodhouse , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Refrain : Poetry Review (Supplement to Australian Book Review) 1992; (p. 19)

— Appears in: Dimitris Tsaloumas : A Voluntary Exile : Selected Writings on His Life and Work 1999; (p. 192-196)
Tsaloumas and the Translation of Experience Jena Woodhouse , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Refrain : Poetry Review (Supplement to Australian Book Review) 1992; (p. 19)

— Appears in: Dimitris Tsaloumas : A Voluntary Exile : Selected Writings on His Life and Work 1999; (p. 192-196)
A Lens on Leros : The Poet as Iconographer Jena Woodhouse , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;

'The focus of this essay is on the presence and significance of Leros in the poetry of Dimitris Tsaloumas. Of particular interest is the quality and agency of light; and the inclusion of Greek Orthodox references and imagery in many of his poems. These corporeal and incorporeal aspects of that island are those which Tsaloumas internalised as integral elements of his identity long before he embarked on what was to be a protracted period of voluntary exile. During his years in Australia, which contributed new input to enrich and expand his personal and poetic consciousness, Tsaloumas never lost sight of his original reference points: the natural and cultural context of Leros, and the spiritual precepts with which he was imbued by the Greek Orthodox Church.' (Publication abstract)

In Transit : Migration and Memory in the Writings of Martin Johnston and Dimitris Tsaloumas Julian Tompkin , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 19 no. 1 2019;

'In August 1964 Martin Johnston boarded the Ellinis in the port of Piraeus, destined for Sydney, Australia, bringing to an end his 14-year estrangement from the land of his birth. Johnston, who had lived abroad most of his life in England and Greece, would return as a literal migrant to his own country. It was a theme that would prove fecund and deeply allegorical for the then 17-year-old son of authors George Johnston and Charmian Clift, later manifesting in his poetic works such as In Transit: a sprawling 14-part paean to Johnston’s immutable sense of displacement.

'A little over a decade before, in 1952, Greek poet Dimitris Tsaloumas would complete the same metamorphic journey, fleeing his Dodecanese homeland and arriving in Melbourne, Australia where he would take up the uneasy mantle of Australia’s Hellenic poet in exile. Despite parabolic overtures of assimilation, paradoxical themes of longing and dislocation pockmark Tsaloumas’s vast canon, tethering an uneasy union between his two divergent worlds both ancient and contemporary; familiar and profoundly alien.

'This essay explores the lives and comparative themes of exile in the works of both Johnston and Tsaloumas—writers who both identified as Xenos, a Greek word that translates as both ‘guest’ and ‘stranger’—and investigates the often incorporeal, irredeemable and contradictory natures of nostalgia and belonging.' (Publication abstract)

Last amended 26 Nov 2002 15:27:59
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