y separately published work icon Last Days of the Mill selected work   poetry   art work   biography  
Issue Details: First known date: 2012... 2012 Last Days of the Mill
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'For seven decades 'The Pulp' constructed the social, economic and environmental circumstances of life on the North-West Coast. In 2011, on the last day of its operation, artist Tony Thorne went on site armed with sketchpad and camera. And writer Pete Hay came to Burnie armed with notepad and recorder, to talk to displaced mill workers. The result is this extraordinary collaboration of dramatic monologues in the vernacular voice of the mill floor and artworks of stark, confronting beauty that vividly capture the dying days of an industrial colossus.' (Publisher's blog.)

Notes

  • Editor's note: The Burnie Paper Mill ceased production on 16 June 2010 after 73 years. These monologues are based on interviews the author conducted in 2010-2011 during a writer's residency in Burnie. Works were exhibited at Burnie Regional Art Gallery in 2011, and at Moonah Arts Centre in March 2012.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Hobart, Southeast Tasmania, Tasmania,: Forty Degrees South , ca. 2012 .
      Extent: 103p.
      Description: col. illus.
      Note/s:
      • Includes illustrated fold-out endpapers.
      • Limited edition of 400 copies.
      ISBN: 9780987283856 (hbk.), 9780987283863 (pbk.)
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Works about this Work

Poetry as Investigative Pedagogy : Issues of Ethics and Praxis in Hay and Thorne’s Last Days of the Mill, 2012. P. R. Hay , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology , no. 6 2016-2017; (p. 11-20) 'This paper examines dilemmas of ethics and practice in the author’s co-written Last Days of the Mill (2012). The usefulness of poetry as a tool of social inquiry is considered, both in the immediate context of a dying pulp mill in an industrial town in northern Tasmania, and the wider symbolic import of the mill’s demise within an island wedded to an unrealisable vision of industrial greatness. It is argued that there are forms of knowing in which poetry is far more efficacious than analytical prose, most notably elusive and grounded understandings such as ‘being there-ness’, and the accretion of a vividly storied mindscape expressed through the spoken word. The paper then considers the injunction of the Canadian poet, Robert Bringhurst – that ‘when he sees his people destroying the world, the poet can say, “we’re destroying the world”. He can say it in narrative or lyric or dramatic or meditative form, tragic or ironic form, short or long form . . . But he cannot lie, as a poet . . . ’ The paper argues for a more nuanced and inclusivist ethic, even when, technically speaking, this requires an act of dissimulation on the part of the poet. ' (Publication abstract)
Untitled Dael Allison , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Famous Reporter , December no. 44 2012; (p. 43-49)
— Review of Last Days of the Mill P. R. Hay , 2012 selected work poetry art work biography
Untitled Dael Allison , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Famous Reporter , December no. 44 2012; (p. 43-49)
— Review of Last Days of the Mill P. R. Hay , 2012 selected work poetry art work biography
Poetry as Investigative Pedagogy : Issues of Ethics and Praxis in Hay and Thorne’s Last Days of the Mill, 2012. P. R. Hay , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology , no. 6 2016-2017; (p. 11-20) 'This paper examines dilemmas of ethics and practice in the author’s co-written Last Days of the Mill (2012). The usefulness of poetry as a tool of social inquiry is considered, both in the immediate context of a dying pulp mill in an industrial town in northern Tasmania, and the wider symbolic import of the mill’s demise within an island wedded to an unrealisable vision of industrial greatness. It is argued that there are forms of knowing in which poetry is far more efficacious than analytical prose, most notably elusive and grounded understandings such as ‘being there-ness’, and the accretion of a vividly storied mindscape expressed through the spoken word. The paper then considers the injunction of the Canadian poet, Robert Bringhurst – that ‘when he sees his people destroying the world, the poet can say, “we’re destroying the world”. He can say it in narrative or lyric or dramatic or meditative form, tragic or ironic form, short or long form . . . But he cannot lie, as a poet . . . ’ The paper argues for a more nuanced and inclusivist ethic, even when, technically speaking, this requires an act of dissimulation on the part of the poet. ' (Publication abstract)
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Awards

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Last amended 12 Sep 2019 10:49:56
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