Poetry

Is it possible to provide a spatial character of outscape? It will be enough to say now that I have found, at least, three principle geometries that pattern the poetry of outscape: panels, discs, beans.

Robert Wood is a recipient of a 2017 SRB-CA Emerging Critics Fellowship. This is the third of three essays by…

I shall begin my exploration of this new book about one of modern poetry’s most emblematic figures by referring to…

James Joyce claimed that he used the Odyssey as the mythical framework for his modern epic Ulysses because the poem’s…

Apostate from the storms of passion,He locked himself within his denAnd, with a yawn, took up his penAnd tried to…

The mediation of bilingual migrant writers extends past the challenges of securing publication. Bobis’s two most recent titles, the 2017 poetry collection Accidents of Composition and the 2015 novel Locust Girl, have received surprisingly little attention from critics writing for a non-academic readership… What this might suggest is that the reduction in spaces for discussion of literature, widely bemoaned, has particular implications for migrant writers – as evidenced by the steady decline in attention to an accomplished writer such as Bobis.’

‘Just as there is no one way to write a poem, there is no one way to compose a meme. And, as with poetry, there are a number of forms and types of memes, the conditions of which provide some guidance or instruction regarding form and content. In the same way that the haiku form is typically characterised by a poem composed of 17 syllables (morae), with a seasonal reference (kigo) and juxtaposition of images (kiru); a Doge meme typically comprises an image of a Shiba Inu, and the dog’s internal monologue captioned in multicoloured comic sans. Just as the modes of production for poetry vary (and can be linked with the poem’s form/content, as in a cento) so to do those for memes.’

Sarah Rice’s poems both advocate a poetry that is attuned to the heart, the body, and the spirit, along with the brain, and embody this poetics in richly metaphorical, euphonious, descriptive, and synaesthetic language.

When Petrina said she was being treated like a dog she was using the figure of speech that is common to our cultures. It’s the slight on dogs that almost any one of us can carelessly slip into. We say it when we feel as low as a dog might seem to be, when we are utterly demoralised as dogs can appear to be. When we are as low as some drinkers can get. When we are a lowly camp dog, as distinct from a frisky and free dingo, for instance, a species that comes from the north Asian wolf. Being treated like a dog might also mean being treated with less respect than even camp dogs get. Some dogs have been made kin but they are also bad dogs – disobedient, disruptive, ungrateful, feral, even self-destructive in their reckless ways. They seem to beg for the kicks they get. Dogs that deserve their punishment because they flout the rules of sociability. Outcast dogs, dogs who turned on themselves and others. Drunken dogs, you might say, but dogs that are still kin. Dogs that create a hell of a lot of grief all round.

‘If you become too pleased with yourself, you can become lazy as a poet. It’s dangerous to feel self-satisfied. You have to always have a critical eye on your work.’