Source
Homings and Departures: Selected Poems fron Contemporary China and AustraliaPagination
178 - 178Publisher
Recent Work PressPlace of publication
Canberra, A.C.T.ISBN-13
9780645008968Language
English; ChineseResearch statement
POETRY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND DEFAMILIARISATION
Research background
Poetry’s power to defamiliarise language and to challenge the automatism of perception was first theorised by the Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky in 1917, notably at a revolutionary moment for the Soviet Union. The critical concept of defamiliarisation, however, has fallen out of favour--along with New Formalism more generally--because of its association with the 'purely' aesthetic. However, might defamiliarisation find new valency in the unfamiliar age of the Anthropocene?
Research Contribution
Contributing to knowledge generated in the Field of Research 190402 Creative Writing, these two poems investigate how defamiliarisation as a poetic technique might find new application in our present climate emergency. In the two poems here I estrange readers from the concept of the 'animal' or 'natural' in modernity and in the Anthropocene.
Research Significance
The value of these two poems is attested to by: their publication and translation in the bilingual Australia/Chinese anthology in which they appear; their previous publication in Island and Meanjin; and their inclusion in my new book of poems with the prestigious University of Queensland Press, a book named as one of the most anticipated releases of 2021 by The Australian and widely reviewed in mainstream forums.Publication classification
JO4 Original Creative Works – OtherEditor/Contributor(s)
L Dougan, P Hetherington, I Fan Xing
