Volume
79Pagination
37-37ISSN
0025-6293Language
engResearch 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 experimental prose poem foregrounds both intensely personal and elegiac subject matter but also its materiality to signal how autobiographical poetry gives expression to the personal only through materially mediated practices of creativity. This is something I have also explored in scholarly work that reflects on my creative practice as a poet (including in an essay published in the Q1 journal Life Writing).
Research Significance
The value of this poem is attested to by: its commissioned publication by the poetry editor of Meanjin; its publication in one of the most prestigious journals for publishing creative writing in Australia; the profiling of my name on the cover of the issue of Meanjin; its publication internationally in Inverted Syntax (US); and its inclusion in my new book of poems 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.Publication classification
JO3 Original Creative Works – Textual WorkScale
NTRO OtherIssue
2Publisher
Melbourne University PublishingPlace of publication
Melbourne, Vic.Source
Meanjin
