elsewhere with poetry
OK, there's been a brief hiatus here.
I had things on my mind and things to do - family stuff, all in train but taking up time 'n energy.
And just the last few days bouncing around two conferences. I spoke at one and read at another. And took lots of notes. And, more importantly, caught up with friends and colleagues, many of whom I see rarely.
But it gets me thinking a coupla of things.
-- That it's mainly at an, for want of a better word, 'academic' conference that there's any discussion of Australian poetry - though there have been some practitioner conferences in the last few years that have been very honorable exceptions. The mainstream media and events seem only to be able to deal with discussion about the usual suspects (poems and poets), if they approach poetry at all.
-- That poetry by many of us is still resistant to discussion, let alone analysis - or is certainly effaced from any debate or discussion because ... because why? ... it doesn't fit current academic theorising let alone journalistic categories, it is ... well, resistant. And is that a good thing? To be, effectively, absent, or to be somewhere else, somewhere where it's happening (if it's happening). Maybe I am writing Elsewhere Poetry.
And I'm talking about 'poetry in Australia' (as opposed to 'Australian poetry'). There seems to be plenty of talk of poetry and poets somewhere else, just as it is true that somewhere else (you know where I mean) isn't interested in the poetry of anyotherwhere.
Just raving. Mi scusi.
I had things on my mind and things to do - family stuff, all in train but taking up time 'n energy.
And just the last few days bouncing around two conferences. I spoke at one and read at another. And took lots of notes. And, more importantly, caught up with friends and colleagues, many of whom I see rarely.
But it gets me thinking a coupla of things.
-- That it's mainly at an, for want of a better word, 'academic' conference that there's any discussion of Australian poetry - though there have been some practitioner conferences in the last few years that have been very honorable exceptions. The mainstream media and events seem only to be able to deal with discussion about the usual suspects (poems and poets), if they approach poetry at all.
-- That poetry by many of us is still resistant to discussion, let alone analysis - or is certainly effaced from any debate or discussion because ... because why? ... it doesn't fit current academic theorising let alone journalistic categories, it is ... well, resistant. And is that a good thing? To be, effectively, absent, or to be somewhere else, somewhere where it's happening (if it's happening). Maybe I am writing Elsewhere Poetry.
And I'm talking about 'poetry in Australia' (as opposed to 'Australian poetry'). There seems to be plenty of talk of poetry and poets somewhere else, just as it is true that somewhere else (you know where I mean) isn't interested in the poetry of anyotherwhere.
Just raving. Mi scusi.
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