posted on 2019-01-01, 00:00authored byMaria Takolander
Lullaby
History
Pagination
283-284
ISBN-13
9781760785000
Language
eng
Research statement
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POETRY AND THE NEW MATERIALISM
Research Background
Autobiographical poetry is associated with individual—often pathological—expression. Redfield Jamison, Kyaga and Stone Horton are among scholars who account for autobiographical poetry in relation to the mental illnesses of individual poets. However, the materialist turn in creativity studies (as seen in the work of Csikszentmihalyi, Glaveanu and Tanggaard, for instance) reminds us how creativity always emerges from individuals working with the specific traditions and materials of an art form, presenting a problem for ‘expressive’ theories of autobiographical poetry.
Research Contribution
Contributing to knowledge generated in the Field of Research 190402 Creative Writing, this long poem—addressed to the poet Anne Sexton—foregrounds both intensely personal subject matter but also the generative power of the historical field, signalling how autobiographical poetry gives expression to the personal only through culturally mediated practices of creativity. The tension between the poem’s confessional mode and the work’s networked genesis is something I have also explored in scholarly work that reflects on my creative practice (including in an essay published in the Q1 journal Life Writing).
Research Significance
The value of this poem is attested to by: its publication in the Australian poetry journal Rabbit, which has an anonymous submissions process; its republication in the major anthology of feminist writing by Picador, #MeToo: Stories from the Australian Movement, which was reviewed in all mainstream media outlets; and its inclusion in my new book of poems (Trigger Warning) with the prestigious University of Queensland Press (which only publishes four poetry collections annually by writers such as David Malouf), a book which was already named as one of the most anticipated releases of 2021 by The Australian.