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Absolutely Revolting

July–August 2013, no. 353

Welcome to our annual Art issue! Noted photography scholar Helen Ennis – in her ABR George Hicks Foundation Fellowship – writes about Olive Cotton’s second marriage and slow re-emergence as a photographer. Mark Dober and Mary Eagle review the big new NGV Monet and NGA Turner exhibitions. Other highlights include Tim Rowse’s review of Marcia Langton’s 2012 Boyer Lectures and Morag Fraser’s reading of Joyce Carol Oates’s new novel. In Advances we question the Melbourne Writers’ Festival’s strong emphasis on the London Review of Books in its new program. Our Open Page guest this month is the Pascall Prize winner, Kerryn Goldsworthy.

Open Page with Kerryn Goldsworthy
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I have ludicrous erotic dreams about dreadfully inappropriate people. I also dream about crashing the car. I hope these two things are not connected.
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Why do you write?

Because I’m a compulsive communicator. I also like structure and making things, so making sentences out of words and paragraphs out of sentences seems the obvious way of making sense of the world.

Are you a vivid dreamer?

Occasionally. I have ludicrous erotic dreams about dreadfully inappropriate people. I also dream about crashing the car. I hope these two things are not connected.

Where are you happiest?

Tuscany for joyfulness, Scotland for deep-seated ancestral at-homeness, and certain very specific places in the South Australian countryside for feeling at peace in my bones.

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Grace Nye reviews Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near
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With this decadent Young Adult novel, described as a ‘bubble-gum-gothic fairytale’, Allyse Near pulls off a surprising magic trick, combining the darker moments of the Brothers Grimm with the modern daydream-realism of Francesca Lia Block.
Book 1 Title: Fairytales for Wilde Girls
Book Author: Allyse Near
Book 1 Biblio: Random House, $19.95 pb, 420 pp, 9781742758510
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With this decadent Young Adult novel, described as a ‘bubble-gum-gothic fairytale’, Allyse Near pulls off a surprising magic trick, combining the darker moments of the Brothers Grimm with the modern daydream-realism of Francesca Lia Block.

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Gig Ryan reviews Home by Dark by Pam Brown
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Home by Dark is Pam Brown’s seventeenth book. She has also published ten chapbooks, including two collaborations. Brown’s poems are mostly elliptical, pithy, hewn into slight lines that imply or jest. Each poem manoeuvres and collects the everyday. It is an aesthetic of accumulation, a bricolage that ...
Book 1 Title: Home by Dark
Book Author: Pam Brown
Book 1 Biblio: Shearsman Books, $23 pb, 131 pp, 9781848612884
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Home by Dark is Pam Brown’s seventeenth book. She has also published ten chapbooks, including two collaborations. Brown’s poems are mostly elliptical, pithy, hewn into slight lines that imply or jest. Each poem manoeuvres and collects the everyday. It is an aesthetic of accumulation, a bricolage that navigates a precarious engagement with the world. Dailiness transmits a poetics of thought in action, as everything is amusingly conjured. Brown favours the outwardly casual and self-consciously records a life of random moments. Distraction and transience become modes of perception, serendipitously curious, as she bundles possibilities, poised with doubt and an embarrassed, ironic reclamation.

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Stephanie Owen Reeder reviews ANZAC Biscuits by Phil Cummings and Owen Swan, An ANZAC Tale by Greg Holfeld and Ruth Starke, The Promise by Derek Guille, Kaff-eine, and Anne-Sophie Biguet, Vietnam Diary by Mark Wilson
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Article Title: Stephanie Owen Reeder reviews 'ANZAC Biscuits' by Phil Cummings and Owen Swan, 'An ANZAC Tale' by Greg Holfeld and Ruth Starke, 'The Promise' by Derek Guille, Kaff-eine, and Anne-Sophie Biguet, 'Vietnam Diary' by Mark Wilson
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Depicting war in a picture book requires a deft hand. Historical imperatives need to be considered, while also avoiding glorifying war for a young and impressionable audience. Ideally, such books should promote informed discussion rather than mindless militarism.
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Depicting war in a picture book requires a deft hand. Historical imperatives need to be considered, while also avoiding glorifying war for a young and impressionable audience. Ideally, such books should promote informed discussion rather than mindless militarism.

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Anthony Lynch reviews Goad Omen by Corey Wakeling
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Early in his Literary Theory: An Introduction, Terry Eagleton quotes the Russian formalist critic Roman Jakobson: ‘[literature is writing that represents] organised violence committed on ordinary speech.’ I don’t know if Corey Wakeling has been influenced by the formalists’ theories, but Goad Omen, his energetic first collection, is replete with estranging devices that bring attention to poetry as a structure in which ideas and images are set adrift from the anchor of ‘ordinary’ language in utilitarian settings. Within the space of a few lines in almost any given poem, violent ructions in image, ideas, syntax, and grammar occur: ‘pace the percussion of patience through lotus guarantee / banquet the animosity hoax, misplacement. Pert nark’ (‘The Blush’).
Book 1 Title: Goad Omen
Book Author: Corey Wakeling
Book 1 Biblio: Giramondo, $24 pb, 96 pp, 9781922146267
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Early in his Literary Theory: An Introduction, Terry Eagleton quotes the Russian formalist critic Roman Jakobson: ‘[literature is writing that represents] organised violence committed on ordinary speech.’ I don’t know if Corey Wakeling has been influenced by the formalists’ theories, but Goad Omen, his energetic first collection, is replete with estranging devices that bring attention to poetry as a structure in which ideas and images are set adrift from the anchor of ‘ordinary’ language in utilitarian settings. Within the space of a few lines in almost any given poem, violent ructions in image, ideas, syntax, and grammar occur: ‘pace the percussion of patience through lotus guarantee / banquet the animosity hoax, misplacement. Pert nark’ (‘The Blush’).

Read more: Anthony Lynch reviews 'Goad Omen' by Corey Wakeling

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