• Author:agent Judith Bishop http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/bishop-judith
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 "The Water Changing under Keel" : Chris Wallace-Crabbe and the Transformation of Style
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In The Breaking of Style, Helen Vendler observes that "in lyric writing, style in its largest sense is best understood as a material body." The body of style resists reshaping, and though the breaking may seem, at last, as fluid as water, many poems may be needed to prepare the transformation. This essay explores the emergence of an original voice through the first four collections by the distinguished Australian poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe. It tracks the agonistic forces of two distinct styles, present from the beginning of Wallace-Crabbe's oeuvre, demonstrating how these stylistic sources led through gradual transformation to the poet's mature voice.'  (Publication abstract)

Notes

  • Epigraph:

    Then at last

    We sense the water changing under keel:

    Gone the exhilaration of the rocks,

    Vanished our agitation, whirl and dash,

    As out we glide upon that nameless flood

    A twilit river at the core of things.  (Wallace-Crabbe, "Like Orellana," Rebel General 25)

     

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Antipodes vol. 34 no. 1 June 2020 22817380 2020 periodical issue

    'Before I wrote my first book, I didn't fully understand how the "editor" really worked. In shepherding that first book to publication, I had the good fortune and excellent guidance of Helen Tartar, longtime humanities editor at Stanford University Press, underappreciated there and in a fit of downsizing, forced to relocate to Fordham University Press, where she was given the means and the opportunity to flourish, especially in her forte, working with young scholars. My book had its particular fits and starts and a bit of a challenge getting past the review board. I'll never forget sitting with Helen at a book exhibit, probably at the American Comparative Literature Association annual convention, a moment of quiet while everyone was in sessions, and figuring out the last revisions to my manuscript. It wasn't a long conversation, or a demanding one, but somehow, she was working her magic. I left that convention knowing exactly what I needed to do, and I marveled at her ability to help me figure that out. At that point, I started to know what an editor could do, to understand when writers talked about "my editor" and all that this relationship implied.' (Brenda Machosky, From the Editor, introduction)

    2020
    pg. 7-21
Last amended 1 Sep 2021 13:07:45
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