Issue Details: First known date: 2018... 2018 'Singing in My Careless Hand' : Dorothy Porter's Verse Novels
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Dorothy Porter wanted to make poetry popular again, to bring r back into the mainstream and attract the readers that had abandoned it in the twentieth century, as the novel became the dominant literary form. She expressed that desire when discussing the mood and melancholia of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. She said, "I want to break away from that modernist fatigue. I want some green leaves to growl want poetry to get people intoxicated and drunk again. I want poem!' to be seen as something festive, fun and dangerous" (Digby 39). One way to capture some new ground for poetry was to challenge the relative domination of the lyric, which eventually resulted in Porter writing five verse novels. This chapter examines the successes and the limitations of these novels as narratives and as poetry.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Feeding the Ghost : 1 : Criticism on Contemporary Australian Poetry Andy Kissane (editor), David Musgrave (editor), Carolyn Rickett (editor), Waratah : Puncher and Wattmann , 2018 15390956 2018 anthology criticism

    'This book is aimed at providing criticism on contemporary Australian poetry in a form that is accessible to general readers. It is intended to be the first in a series which will grapple with the bewildering diversity of the contemporary poetry scene. Australian poetry deserves a criticism that accompanies the astonishing momentum and luminosity that has developed, which both elucidates the scale of poetic achievement and is also not afraid to evaluate that achievement through a rigorous and disinterested critical lens. Australian poets have been feeding the ghost with extraordinary energy and acumen over the last quarter of a century; it is now time for Australian poetry criticism to catch up.' (Introduction)

    Waratah : Puncher and Wattmann , 2018
    pg. 112-147
Last amended 26 Mar 2019 09:47:31
112-147 'Singing in My Careless Hand' : Dorothy Porter's Verse Novelssmall AustLit logo
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X