Cirrus@Austlit

'Translations is a personal history written at the intersection of colonial anthropology, creative practice and migrant ethnography. Renowned postcolonial scholar, public artist and radio maker, UK-born Paul Carter documents and discusses a prodigiously varied and original trajectory of writing, sound installation and public space dramaturgy produced in Australia to present the phenomenon of contemporary migration in an entirely new light. Migrant space-time, Carter argues, is not linear, but turbulent, vortical and opportunistic. Before-and-after narratives fail to capture the work of self-becoming and serve merely to perpetuate colonialist fantasies. The 'mirror state' relationship between England and Australia, its structurally symmetrical histories of land theft and internal colonisation, repress the appearance of new subjects and subject relations. Reflecting on collaborations with Aboriginal artists, Carter argues for a new definition of the stranger-host relationship predicated on recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty. Carter calls the creative practice that breaks the cycle of repeated invasion 'dirty art'. Translations is a passionately eloquent argument for reframing borders as crossing-places: framing less murderous exchange rates, symbolic literacy, creative courage and, above all, the emergence of a resilient migrant poetics will be essential.'  (Publication summary)

'The poems of Ecstacies and Elegies are as engaging and virtuosic in their range of styles as they are generous in their imagery.

The way up and the way down are the same, said Heraclitus, and in this moving collection the ecstasy of love coexists with the grief of death; the pain of loss is in proportion to the longing for union. The poet is lifted up, flying over the earth’s surface like a bird; he climbs and descends the stairs of foreign cities; in the breakup of a relationship he looks up from the city pavement. States of illness are translated into lucid dreams. Tours in other countries discover an inner music. A fissure in reality opens up.

Paul Carter’s intuition that space is history has distinguished his cultural writing, public art and radiophonic scripting. In his first full length volume of poems, a celebrated debut, we encounter a startling overlay of immemorial myth and ephemeral urban encounter. Spirits of the classical world jostle with the sensory stimuli of contemporary domestic life. Desire tours a terrain of abysses.' (Publication blurb)

'In "The Letter S" Paul Carter overlays a number of parallel journeys.

'A group of actors meet with a young playwright to work on a his new play: theirs is an artistic journey. The playwright's father wrote a radio play which they listen to: it is Memory As Desire about the journey in search of the inland sea, and the mutual incomprehension of indigenous and European cultures. His new play is based on the Odyssey and in particular the relationship between father and son: the son searching for the lost father. Just as the search for the inland sea is ill-fated, so to the cast of actors conclude that their search for a new theatre is futile. The indigenous people had no letter 'S', leading to misunderstanding. The explorers failed to listen to the land. The characters in the version of the Odyssey are washed away in a sea of sibilants. This is a work packed full of ideas, puns, and concrete poetry propelled by desire and loss, but also hope.'

Source: ABC Radio National website, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/airplay/stories/2006/1716177.htm
Sighted: 11/09/2006

'16 'Olympian Odes' in the tradition of the dada/futurist, trans-lingual voice poem evoking the 'meaning of the Olympics to Australians'. Derived from the text-based, site-specific art work installed at Fig Grove, next to the Homebush Bay main stadium, the odes relate specifically to the first modern Olympics meet in Athens in 1896, the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the Sydney 2000 Olympics and 'the Olympics of the future'. These texts are engraved into the vertical faces of the stone tiers that compose the 'sitting out' areas of Fig Grove. They are composed of words that overlap their first and last letters - as if a baton were being handed over in a relay race. Inside the arrangement of words and their combinations other hidden words and meanings are concealed. A polyphony of alternative readings emerges. Making out the sense of these could be compared to watching a race where the runners keep changing positions, and for a time the outcome is unclear. Since the metrical unit of poetic line is the foot, Relay for Radio revives the connection between poetic rhythm and the dance of feet, the dance in this case evoking a group of running feet in a constantly changing rhythmic relationship with each other.' (ABC Classic FM website)