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Cover image courtesy of publisher.
y separately published work icon The Persistence of History selected work   poetry  
Issue Details: First known date: 2023... 2023 The Persistence of History
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'‘The majority of poems in The Persistence of History describe Graeme Hetheringtons engagement with David Keelings paintings. As a form of ekphrasis, Hetheringtons responses to Keelings art are rarely detailed descriptions of the paintings themselves, but rather personal responses to the works evoking memories of his own lifes circumstances and reflections on the human condition. The subjects of Keelings Young Couple in Developing Landscape 1988”, Frontier Foundation 1994” and To The Island 1989” stimulate memories of the poets unhappy first marriage by focusing on particular features of the paintings that sharpen the tragedy of that relationship – the movement of the Glover-eucalypts” that asphyxiate”, the convict-dug pit” representing the fall into the hell of splitting up” compounded by the symbolic image of the pitchfork. Similarly, in poems responding to Keelings Veil 1991–92”, Gate 1994”, Curios 1999” and “‘Everything Must Go 2003”, Hetherington remembers his mother living in her insane interior” veiled by drawn blinds and curtains, his granny” who only lifted the veil of her black hat to terrify the young poet, and the gate at his homes entrance on which he would perch to greet his grandfather after work and which protected him from Bully-boys living opposite”. But more striking is the poets reading” in Keelings paintings of an ecologically debased / And troubled earth” facing irreversible defeat” as the ultimate corpse”. The strength of Hetheringtons response to this theme is conveyed by brutal imagery depicting the world as a concentration-like gaol in which we dance with death” in a devastated landscape which has become a massive mastectomy” of dry mounds / Arranged in pairs like shorn-off breasts”. Hetherington accuses humankind of fouling” the earth. His depictions of the desecration of the symbols and rituals of the Christian Mass, and his questioning of the nature of Christs Second Coming in response to Keelings Shroud 1994”, The Cunning Fox 1998”, Other Edens 1998” and Plenty 1994”, reinforce the poets feelings of misanthropy. The poets ultimate despair for the future of humankind is portrayed in his engagement with Keelings The Persistence of History 1994”. Using the timeless images of art and the theatre, the poet suggests that conflict, dispossession and murder have always been a part of the human condition, as have peoples indifference to such states of being. Confronted by this theatre of the absurd”, the poet finds some reprieve and even redemption in Keelings two paintings of The Road 2002” where light appears to create cooling transparent pools” and ultimately becomes a healing blaze”. – Ralph Spaulding' (Publication summary)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Port Adelaide, Port Adelaide - Enfield area, Adelaide - Northwest, Adelaide, South Australia,: Ginninderra Press , 2023 .
      image of person or book cover 3840339149302453822.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 1vp.
      Description: illus.
      Note/s:
      •   Published 1 October 2023

      ISBN: 9781761096341
Last amended 4 Oct 2023 09:39:30
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