The Blue Hills Archipelago single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2023... 2023 The Blue Hills Archipelago
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'This essay puts forth Laurie Duggan’s decades-long serial poem, Blue Hills (1980–), as a radical antimythic and ecological approach to longform ‘epic’ poetics – or what I term the ‘ecological anti-epic’. The essay first reflects on the mythic ambitions of twentieth century Anglo-American modernist epic poets, such as Ezra Pound and TS Eliot, before turning to what I call the North American ‘antiepic’ postmodernist serial poem tradition. Centring on Robert Duncan’s Passages -- a key influence on Duggan’s own series -- I argue this ‘anti-epic’ approach to the long poem replaced the ‘mythical method’ (Eliot 1923: 483) of early modernist epics with a compositional method. Reading Blue Hills through the guiding principle of Duncan’s series, ‘grand collage’ (2014: 298), the essay then posits that Blue Hills -- as a localised re-deployment of Duncan’s grand collage method -- can be read as both a continuation, and subversive settler Australian reimagination, of the North American anti-epic serial poem tradition. Drawing on Peter Minter’s archipelagic approach to reading Australian poetry, Blue Hills is then read as a type of archipelago of poetic islands, one which challenges not only the epiccum-mythic ambitions of modernist longform poetry, but also the racially charged environmental myth-conceptions of early settler Australian poetic movements, such as the Jindyworobaks. I conclude with a brief reflection on the links between the process-based aesthetics of post-modern anti-epics and what Connor Weightman calls the ‘ecological long poem’ (2020: 3), ultimately positing that Duggan’s Blue Hills refutes the modernist penchant for speaking declaratively about the world and instead affects a sense that the world is reveling in its own wording.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Axon : Creative Explorations Out of the Ordinary vol. 13 no. 2 November 2023 27615558 2023 periodical issue

    'Despite many attempts over many decades, it is difficult to point to a single straightforward definition of poetry; but perhaps the most often cited phrase is that it is the use of language and prosody to stir the imagination and the emotions; to concentrate one’s awareness of experience. Both framings -- imagination/emotion, and concentrated awareness -- feature in the essays including in this issue. And, given that this issue is both the product of a poetry conference, and focuses entirely on poetry, a number of the contributions are combinations of poetic sequences (in text, images and film) and short contextualising essays. Attention is given to poetry directed at social or political change; poetry emerging on new platforms, in new relationships or for new audiences; and the exploration of various modes of writing.' (Publication abstract)

    2023
Last amended 1 Mar 2024 10:08:48
https://www.axonjournal.com.au/issues/13-2/blue-hills-archipelago The Blue Hills Archipelagosmall AustLit logo Axon : Creative Explorations
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