AustLit

Author's notes:

Research background

In my poetry dealing with the natural world, I have always been aware of my (and others') physical presence in landscape, and my poems almost always have some palpable human interaction that interrupts the foreground or middle distance. I strive to harness subject matter into the service of language. Prescriptive notions of flora and fauna do not interest me. Lyn Hejinian, one of the most celebrated 'Language' poets in the USA, wrote of language as 'strange matter', suggesting that the language of enquiry that poetry can spark in both the conscious mind and in a distancing, self-effacing sense of self, can be one of the ways in which innovative language works. Hejinian's thoughts interest me when approaching fauna in poetry.

Research contribution

Field Guide attempts to (re)define various species through association and personal experience/interactions. I wanted to highlight various aspects of the environments and lives of birds and animals while maintaining a focus of suggestion as opposed to accurate, forensic isolation.