Cirrus@Austlit

'Since the 19th century, when a number of French writers – most conspicuously Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud – introduced what we may think of as the modern prose poem into European literature, prose poetry has been part of a debate about the contemporary usefulness of existing literary modes and genres. While early French practitioners partly used the form to problematise traditional poetic prosody, once this aim was achieved prose poetry remained a significant contemporary literary form. In the context of contemporary developments in prose poetry, this article discusses John Frow's observations that texts are able to perform or modify a genre, or only partly fulfil generic expectations, or be comprised of more than one genre. It also discusses the authors Rooms and Spaces project, which explores ways in which prose poetry may be considered ‘poetic’; how it may be room-like and condensed; or open and highly suggestive (sometimes both at once); and how prose poetry is intertextual and polysemous. Prose poetry may be generically problematic but the authors suggest that this may make it an exemplary post-postmodern form; and that reading prose poetry may provide significant insights into how unstable genre boundaries really are.' (Publication abstract)

'As a re-writing of the past, Being Marcus is an alternative ‘his-story’ of an important personage in History. In the conspiracy against and assassination of Caesar, Brutus has been seen, through the ages, to have been ‘the leading spirit of the coup’ (Lewis 1983, 58). Beware the Ides of March is a soothsayer's warning in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Caesar, attended by a train of friends and supporters, ignores the warning and leaves for games and races that mark the celebration of the feast of Lupercal (Perry and Vickers 2000, 8). Until then, the Ides of March holds no special significance or association in history, where Ides generally marked the 15th day of a month. Being Marcus is a work of speculative fiction that refers to this day on the Roman calendar (Idus Martias), a fateful one for Caesar. The story toys with alternate history and takes us to the life of Brutus (Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus) following the assassination of Caesar. Same Brutus upon whom Caesar had entrusted ‘important commands in the Gallic and civil wars, he held the governorship of Transalpine Gaul for three years, returning to Rome in 45 B.C. Caesar then designated him to be governor of Cisalpine Gaul in 44–43, and consul with Plancus in 42. The reason why such a favourite of Caesar – even named secondary heir in Caesar's will – joined the conspiracy remains unclear.’ (Lewis 1983, Introduction, xviii). Beware the Ides of March … Centuries later, Marcus recollects the Empire, the reign of a legend. Brutus is now immortal, is living in the shadow of his once hero Caesar.' (Publication abstract)

'The personal essay, as one of the most delightfully subjective manifestations of creative nonfiction, explores what is real and tangible, refined through the intimate perspective and curiosity of the writer. In her best works, the personal essayist has the capacity to disrupt her narratives in ways that will resonate with readers who are themselves adjusting to the disruption of their own personal narrative interactions by social media tools. This paper explores the process by which fragmentary episodes become segments of a linked narrative through the capacity of the personal essayist to leap associatively from personal into universal ‘truths’. Segments coalesce into cogent entities, drawn together as a resonant narrative by themes as echoes, or the deliberate juxtaposition of fragments of story. Such segments-as-narrative are based on perceptions of the essay as a disruptive text, which by the nature of its structure reverberates metaphorically beyond the known and the familiar.' (Publication abstract)