y separately published work icon Southerly periodical issue   peer reviewed assertion
Alternative title: Mixed Messages
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... vol. 77 no. 3 2017 of Southerly est. 1939 Southerly
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The theme of this issue, Mixed Messages, relates in the main to a thread running through the essays, all of which engage with texts that challenge the limits of genre. These challenges include the status and influence of what might be termed a secondary genre deployed by writers whose renown is based on another form: Brigitta Olubas considers the short fiction of novelist Shirley Hazzard; and Cheryl Taylor introduces the poetry of novelist Thea Astley. Kate Livett delves into the mixed media, specifically music and photography, at the core of Helen Garner’s The Children’s Bach, and Peter Kirkpatrick examines the fusion of Gothic and Romance forms in Chloe Hooper’s The Engagement, and David Brooks thinks through the miscenegy of the human and the non-human in relation to the famous scene of Derrida standing naked before his cat. Another strand in the issue is of comedy and errors and includes fiction by Debra Adelaide, John Kinsella, Mark Macrossan, Sara Bucholz, Nasrin Mahoutchi, Niki Tulk and Scott McCulloch. The poetry spans its usual wide range from the lyric to graphic experimentation and the reviews introduce some of the exciting new work published across creative and critical forms.' (Publication abstract)

Notes

  • Only literary material by Australian authors individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:

    Excerpt from 'The Vignettes' by Iain Britton

    Sarah Penwarden: “Her Haiku”

    Niki Tulk: “For Isobel Rose”

    Scott McCulloch: “Glass Masks”
    Mark Hewson on : Mallarme: Ranceiere, Milner, Badoiu.

Contents

* Contents derived from the 2017 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Flightless Birdsi"Then, as if silence is the sound one heart makes", Lara Egger , single work poetry (p. 10)
Whale Shark Skyi"Mathematics of vision have", Siobhan Hodge , single work poetry (p. 11)
Festive Cooking for the Whole Family, Debra Adelaide , single work short story

'Your Christmas lunch or dinner need not be constrained by those fussy and inflexible eaters within the family. A perfectly splendid meal can still be created with a broader range of ingredients than might normally be used for a festive occasion, along with some careful planning and preparation in the weeks before. Knowing well in advance of the dietary requirements of your guests will assist considerably, so you are urged to approach them with a checklist before finalising your menu. Modern families typically comprise vegetarians, vegans, non-pork eaters, seafood allergists and coeliacs, meaning your pantry should be comprehensive enough to provide anything from gluten free fruit cake to tasty alter-natives to roast turkey. ' (Introduction)
 

(p. 13-19)
The Short Fiction of Shirley Hazzard, Brigitta Olubas , single work essay

'Over a publishing career spanning a half-century from the early 1960s. Shirley Hazzard published four acclaimed novels: The Evening of the Holiday (1961), The Bay of Noon (1970), The Transit of Venus (1980) and The Great Fire (2003). These novels focus on the intertwined matter of low and loss: they rake her readers into complex moral territory, with the certainties and compulsions of sexual and romantic love tested throughout by individual vulnerability. At the same time, and much in the manner of novels written a century earlier, they take up what Harvard referred to as "public themes," that is, the substantial human matter of political and social life, played out against the backdrop of the globalising world of the second half of the twentieth century.' (Introduction)

(p. 20-25)
Deep Cut of The Waste Land, or an Alternative to 'Death by Water'i"attentive to the impersonal / to manicured weather", Toby Fitch , single work poetry (p. 26-27)
Raini"We know the rain : how April sages with clouds", Kevin Hart , single work poetry (p. 28-29)
New Uzi"You don’t find many flights to Uz these days;", Kevin Hart , single work poetry (p. 30-31)
Poetic Fire, Thea Astley , single work prose
Thea Astley at 19 years of age comments on the composition of poetry, the public's view of poets, and the lack of financial support for poets.
(p. 40)
I Really Wanted to Write Novels That Are Poems : The Multiple Effects of Poetry in Thea Astley's Fiction, Cheryl M. Taylor , single work criticism

In this essay, Cheryl Taylor writes about the poetry of novelist Thea Astley.

(p. 40-61)
Breakfast, Sarah Bucholz , single work short story (p. 63-65)
Ekphrastic Effects in Helen Garner’s The Children’s Bach, Kate Livett , single work criticism

'Helen Garner's 1984 novella, The Children's Bach opens with a description and commentary on the famous photograph of Alfred Lord Tennyson and his family taken en pleine air at their house on the Isle of Wight in 1862:

'Dexter found, in a magazine. a photograph of the poet Tennyson, his wife and their two sons walking in the garden of their house on the Isle of Wight. To the modern eye it is a shocking picture: they are all, with the exception of the great man himself, bundled up in such enormous, incapacitating garments. Eye-line: Tennyson looks into the middle distance. His wife, holding his arm and standing very close to his side, gazes up into his face. One boy holds his father's hand and looks up at him. The other boy holds his mother's and looks into the camera with a weak, rueful expression. Behind them, out of focus, twinkles the windy foliage of a great garden. Their shadows fall across the lawn: they have just taken a step. Tennyson's hands are large square paws, held up awkwardly at stomach level. His wife's face is gaunt and her eyes are set in deep sockets. It is a photo of a family. The wind puffs out the huge stiff curved sleeve of the woman's dress, and brushes back off his forehead the long hair of the father's boy who is turned towards the drama of his parents' faces; though he is holding his father's hand, he is separate from the group, and light shows between his tightly buttoned torso and his father's leg.' (Introduction)

(p. 66-82)
Hong Kongi"Beneath the jet", S. K. Kelen , single work poetry (p. 83)
More Words : Uses for a Fatheri"Swing pusher human monkey bars punching bag", S. K. Kelen , single work poetry (p. 84)
Dear Nightmare’ : Chloe Hooper’s The Engagement as Gothic Romance, Peter Kirkpatrick , single work criticism

'Chloe Hooper's second novel, The Engagement (2012), was always likely to face a critical challenge. Her previous book was the multi-award-winning The Tall Man (2008), a non-fictional account of the death in police custody of an Indigenous man, Cameron Doomadgee, on Palm Island off the coast of North Queensland in 2004. Coinciding with Kevin Rudd's 2008 National Apology to the Stolen Generations, it was a timely work about racial injustice overshadowed by historical guilt, and was widely publicised and well received. In contrast, The Engagement, variously described as a thriller or a gothic novel, might seem frivolous, and so far has sparked no critical attention apart from reviews, most of which, while finding things to praise, also carried reservations. Owen Richardson in the Monthly-which in 2006 had published Hooper's Walkley Award-winning essay on the inquest into Doomadgee's death—thought that "it was hard not to think that Hooper's gift is slumming it a bit," and Geordie Williamson in the Australian was "not sure how successfully Hooper has held fantasy and reality in tension" (19). Kate McFadyen in Australian Book Review struck something of a common chord when she remarked: "Hooper masters all the generic plot devices, but her characters' responses and motivations do not always ring true...' (Introduction)

(p. 85-105)
Ghazal for Tina, Stuart Barnes , single work poetry (p. 106)
Excerpt from “Binary Tree Poems”i"Monthly, the moon's a full-blown wad of chewing gum,", Stuart Barnes , single work poetry (p. 107)
Democracy for Dummiesi"At dawn democracy was still pretending that it worked. Everything we", Hazel Smith , single work poetry (p. 108)
Fresh Food People, Nasrin Mahoutchi , single work short story (p. 109-120)
Gambrili"Gambril", Mathew Rolfe , single work poetry (p. 121)
Roaming the Campsite, John Kinsella , single work short story (p. 123-128)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 2 Aug 2018 10:00:55
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