Alyson Miller Alyson Miller i(A118139 works by)
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 Seasonal i "The light has changed again, and the cats are mad with it, their eyes and", Alyson Miller , 2023 single work poetry
— Appears in: Meniscus , vol. 11 no. 2 2023; (p. 131)
1 Joy i "I tell you how, in the Babaoshan Cemetery, there is a VR simulation of death: the white explosion and cumulo-form", Alyson Miller , 2023 single work poetry
— Appears in: Foam:e , March no. 20 2023;
1 Plagiarism, John Hughes’ The Dogs and the Ethical Responsibilities of the Novelist Alyson Miller , 2022 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 21 June 2022;

'John Hughes’s novel The Dogs has been withdrawn from the longlist for the Miles Franklin Prize after an investigation by The Guardian identified numerous instances of plagiarism. Hughes’s lifting of passages from other books has sparked furious debate and literary detective work – mostly on Twitter – prompting questions about the nature of influences, literary pastiche and the attribution of sources in novels.' (Introduction)

1 ‘The Talented Mr. Mallory’ : Literary Scammers, Pain-for-profit, and Selves Made of Others Alyson Miller , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: New Writing , vol. 18 no. 2 2021; (p. 197-212)

'In 2019, Dan Mallory, book editor turned author of the enormously successful thriller, The Woman in the Window, was exposed as a pathological dissembler. Faking cancer, an Oxford PhD, a prestigious career, and tragic family deaths, Mallory constructed a distressing history in order to gain authority and influence. Examining the complexities of the fraud in relation to other contemporary fakes, this paper contends that impostors expose the value systems of power, especially those situated within gatekeeping institutions that enable grifters to thrive. It asserts that despite humiliating exposure, or the excoriation of outraged readers, the impostor invariably succeeds, perpetuating an exclusive monoculture in which the same voices, both real and imagined, are heard and received. The Mallory controversy emerges within a succession of impostures fixated on crossing boundaries from privilege to disadvantage and trauma, revealing an identity politics located within the commodification of the marketable ‘other’. The hunger for narratives of ‘authentic’ suffering comes to represent a form of literary virtue signalling which exploits ‘otherness’ to satisfy middle-class stereotypes and prejudices. Imbricated with issues of appropriation and theft, the fake treats suffering as an object to be possessed, yet also functions to uncover a sequence of literary and cultural fault-lines.'  (Publication abstract)

1 ‘The Chernobyl Hibakusha’ : Dark Poetry, the Ineffable and Abject Realities Alyson Miller , Cassandra Atherton , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , October vol. 24 no. 2 2020;
'Chernobyl occupies a complex space in the Western cultural imagination, complicated by science fiction fantasies, crime thrillers, military-style video games, haunting photo installations, and a recent HBO drama series focusing on the nuclear disaster. While the devastation of the reactor is often regarded as a ‘dark metonym for the fate of the Soviet Union’ (Milne 2017: 95), the nuclear crisis is also at the centre of increasing anxieties about the ‘fate of future generations, species extinction and the damage done to the environment’ (93). Indeed, the enormity of Chernobyl, like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima, is often regarded as beyond representation. By examining a range of poems produced by Chernobylites or derived from witness testimonies, we argue that in confronting the unthinkable, poetry is uniquely able to convey the inexpressible and abject horror of nuclear destruction. Further, in considering the potential for commodification in writing about sites of tragedy, we define poetry about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster as an example of ‘dark poetry’ – that is, poetry exploring or attempting to imagine or reanimate examples of dark tourism. We specifically explore this example of dark poetry to contend that while it often lobbies for nuclear international cooperation, it can also be read as exploitative and romanticising the macabre spectacle of nuclear explosion.' (Publication abstract)
1 Unprecedented / Or Alyson Miller , 2020 single work prose
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , April no. 58 2020;
1 Conspiracy Alyson Miller , 2020 single work prose
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , April no. 58 2020;
1 Alyson Miller Reviews Berni M Janssen’s between Wind and Water (in a Vulnerable Place) Alyson Miller , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 95 2020;

— Review of Between Wind and Water : In a Vulnerable Place Berni M. Janssen , 2018 selected work poetry

'In ‘speaking out’, the final poem of berni m janssen’s fifth collection, between wind and water (in a vulnerable place), a choral cry for resistance is offered, a lyric that insists on the ability of individuals to provoke immense change: ‘one voice small forms fight in strength / one voice strong gains another / i’m with you, go boldly’. In a context of climate strikes and impassioned environmental activism, such lines might be attributed to Greta Thunberg, whose reminder that ‘you are never too small to make a difference’ has become the slogan of protestors worldwide demanding action against an impending ecological crisis.' (Introduction)

1 y separately published work icon Strange Creatures Alyson Miller , Canberra : Recent Work Press , 2019 18577455 2019 selected work poetry

'Some say that when a cat adopts that lock-eyed vacuum stare into the impossible space behind you, it can see the ghosts that crawl along ceilings and walls…

'The poems in Alyson Miller’s debut collection are an exploration of the taboo and violence of human nature. From sexuality to the threatening and deadly, these prose poems off new perspectives on the unspeakable, shadowy places of human experience.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 All Saint's Eve i "That night going the long way, round the back-roads with the real gardens and the old people’s home", Alyson Miller , 2018 single work poetry
— Appears in: Otoliths , 1 November no. 51 2018;
1 Chestnuts i "They exploded, the oven contracting with that strange pop-whoosh of detonation. You’re supposed to", Alyson Miller , 2018 single work poetry
— Appears in: Otoliths , 1 November no. 51 2018;
1 On Love i "That trace under the ridge of collarbone, a milky sweet scent not her own. It grows with the warmth of", Alyson Miller , 2018 single work poetry
— Appears in: Otoliths , 1 November no. 51 2018;
1 A Review of Four Titles from UWA Publishing’s Poetry Alyson Miller , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: Editor's Desk - 2017 2017;

— Review of Our Lady of the Fence Post Jennifer Crone , 2016 selected work poetry ; Border Security Bruce Dawe , 2016 selected work poetry ; Star Struck David McCooey , 2016 selected work poetry ; Melbourne Journal : Notebooks 1998-2003 Alan Loney , 2016 selected work poetry
1 Bypass i "The heart is the core, even though it is off-centre and so close", Alyson Miller , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: Meniscus , June vol. 5 no. 1 2017; (p. 75)
1 ‘Words about Words Make Sure Self’ : Ania Walwicz and a Politics of Prose Poetry Alyson Miller , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 46 2017;

'This paper examines how Ania Walwicz uses the protean nature of the prose poem as a medium through which to subvert traditional notions of identity, especially in terms of anxieties about gender and sexuality. According to Dominique Hecq (2009), the prose poem is able to negotiate ‘between notions of a public language of prose and a marginal language of poetry, thereby … enacting particularly complex modes of engagement between subjectivity and the world’. This paper argues that it is the slippery and transformative nature of the prose poem that lends itself so neatly to a politics of subversion. As a ‘borderline genre’ (Hecq 2009), the prose poem occupies an ambiguous space – it is self-conscious and critical yet immersive and seductive; a medium that offers a deceptive simplicity, or a shocking confrontation with otherness. Oftentimes, the prose poem is capable of both in the same instance. By exploring the prose poetry of Walwicz, this paper contends that rather than being understood as a ‘disturbing and elusive’ literary oddity (Delville 1998), the prose poem can be seen to contest formal traditions of both narrative and identity.'  (Publication abstract)

1 Southerly i "A night of prowling hallways, the wind tugging at the roof like some Baumian", Alyson Miller , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Journal , vol. 7 no. 2 2017; (p. 14)
1 Review Short : Berndt Sellheim’s Awake at the Wheel Alyson Miller , 2017 single work review essay
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 57 2017;
'In Awake at the Wheel, Berndt Sellheim’s debut collection of poems, Australia is imagined in gothic terms, from the eerie and persistent presence of the ‘bushland’s dark parchment’ to the bones and ghosts which haunt an endless landscape. An homage to country, there is little innocence embedded in these poems of insides and outsides, which speak not only to a transforming sense of self but also to an environment that ceaselessly, and often uneasily, shifts. It is a thematic captured most vividly in the attention to diurnal rhythms – the ‘dying light’, the ‘wash and ebb’ of the sea – which evolve poignantly in relation to the cycles of life and death. In Sellheim’s work, such categories are rarely exclusive, but invested in notions of everyday metamorphosis, such as in ‘The Divine Art of Compost’, in which a ‘lush thermal sweat’ creates a ‘sumptuous / chemistry / of season and decay’. These transformations are ‘all organic matter’, yet there is nonetheless an abiding disquiet, as noted in the suggestion that while there are ‘bodies which build and inhabit’, there are also ‘bodies which lie beneath’, a reminder of how the Australian gothic is interchangeable with the post-colonial.' (Introduction)
1 Review Short : Rose Lucas’s Unexpected Clearing Alyson Miller , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 August no. 55.0 2016;

— Review of Unexpected Clearing : Poems by Rose Lucas Rose Lucas , 2016 selected work poetry
1 Lunar Alyson Miller , 2016 single work prose
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 61 no. 2 2016; (p. 158)
1 Review Short : Michele Seminara’s Engraft Alyson Miller , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , October no. 55.1 2016;

— Review of Engraft Michele Seminara , 2016 selected work poetry
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