Cirrus@Austlit

'Poetica was a weekly poetry program broadcast on ABC Radio National from 1997 to 2014. The program was founded and hosted by the poet and broadcaster Mike Ladd. While there has been a long history of poetry on ABC radio since the 1930s (see Poetica’s program for the 75th anniversary of ABC Radio, broadcast on 30 June 2007 – the transcript is available online), Poetica was different to most other radio poetry programs, not just in Australia but in the world. It was a sonically complex program, featuring readings of poems – sometimes by actors, and sometimes by poets – embedded in rich soundscapes, typically made up of nature recordings, music from commercially released albums (or sometimes commissioned specifically for a show), digital sound effects, and framing commentary from poets and their peers. Other English-language radio and podcast poetry shows tend to focus on voice exclusively – readings by the poet, with discussion – so Poetica was unusual in its aesthetic make-up.' (Introduction)

'We find Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson walking along a busy road in London, going against the flow of the many faces in the street, muttering to each other like a pair of homeless crazies. They have both come to London to escape the pain of a broken heart, and the men, rivals in so many things, have discovered that they have shared the same mistress! Yet if either expected to find some consolation in the other’s suffering, they have instead found it exacerbates their own. (Introduction)

'In the middle of the road are a worm and a girl. The worm is translucent. Old flesh with a grey stripe. Perhaps this marks the head, she thinks, staring with a zooming concentration which makes her face feel heavy and dumb. Last night a month’s worth of rain flung itself at the earth, and now the sun is seedy and slow. It squints obliquely, sweating the night off.' (Introduction)

'In the introduction to Contemporary Australian Literature, Nicholas Birns recounts how he first came to the field as a young student studying at Columbia in the mid 1980s, his enthusiasm sparked by immersion in the work of Patrick White and Les Murray. From here Birns branched out voraciously, seeking in Australian literature an ideal he thought had been lost to the States: ‘a horizon of hope, a milieu of greater generosity and charity, tolerance and flexibility’. 1 While he quickly realised what any more seasoned or cynical Australian critic would have told him, that this was largely ‘an illusion’, it is safe to say that Birns has not entirely lost his sense of hope when it comes to Australia and its literature (7). Throughout an eclectic research career – he has published on subjects as diverse as Early Modern literature, the history of literary theory, and the SpanishAmerican novel – Australian writing has remained an abiding academic interest, and he has served as the editor of Antipodes since 2001.' (Introduction)

'The cover of George Dyuŋgayan’s Bulu Line: A West Kimberley Song Cycle needs more names. An innovative experimentation in both aesthetic and material structuring, this book features at various points up to seven figures performing in various functions and subversions of poetic and critical authorship.' (Introduction)

'Carmel Bird’s new novel is a fractal satire on the dynastic family novel – replete with the customary tropes of the genre: secrets repressed and confessed in the stratigraphy of a garish baroque of class signifiers. Family Skeleton relates the travails and intrigues of an inbred clan of parvenu undertakers, episodically followed over several generations through a pastiche of anecdote and gossip.' (Introduction)

'In the wake of Brexit and the rise of Donald Trumpism (with the underlining racisms and sexisms) Education has turned out to be the new Class divide i.e. a clash of the Ignorant verses the Enlightened. Seems, the Educated fear being ruled by the Ignorant & Know-Nothings, and the Less-Educated fear (as has always been the case) being governed, by the arrogance of intellectual snobs who know next to little-or-nothing of their lives and experiences. It seems (according to the pundits) that people in Britain and the USA are increasingly being shaped (and Voting) according to how long they spent at school. (Sending all the commentators back to their proletarian textbooks presumably). The ancient Greeks knew that for Democracy to work properly, you had to let the Have-Nots get their claws into the Haves every now and then. But with the creeping rise of Corporations, Globalisation, the closing down of local industries in preference to world markets etc. this is becoming less and less possible or likely. It isn’t so surprising when you realise that Economists (from Hayek to Friedman) are all of a piece; seriously believing that Democracy itself is the cause of our “economic ills” producing inflation (no less) at the expense of free-market economics. This new cultural divide is nowhere more obvious however than in the current anthology. The Editors proudly headline the title of their Editorial (on the first page) with the words “A Luminous Field” (with their haloes, presumably) unashamedly parading the “new paradigms” of Australian poetry. This Elitist attitude permeates a lot of Australian anthologies, albeit not as blatantly as this one. It would be instructive to do a statistical breakdown of who and how and how many of those poets in those anthologies (especially pre-1980s) were similarly Degreed.' (Introduction)

'Misreadingsand othering aside – did Π.Ο. actually read any of the poems, or did he just know they were wrong? – there are important issues raised by Π.Ο.’s review. It may be worth saying something about the most important – regarding the level of understanding that the reader brings to the poem. Poetry’s role has changed over the last century or two. Most of our stories are now told in other formats – novels, films, TV. Most of our declarations of desire or loss are now sung for us as pop songs (though not all: there are still great love poems). Most of our declarations of loyalty and tales of patriotism have, thankfully, receded into a past of bad newspaper verse, and earnest recitals. But poetry has continued to do some things better, perhaps, than any other art-form: to find clear ways of saying what is otherwise only partially understood, to weigh those articulations emotionally, and, sometimes, to make them sing. It works a frontier: not just of our understandings, but of our responses to them: a complex edge of meanings and the weight of meanings. We think Π.Ο. has completely missed the innovation, the distinctiveness and the radicalism of contemporary verse.' (Introduction)