Class One. Banjo Patterson, Henry Lawson and Early Visions of Australia Learning Outcomes · An outline of the animating principles of early Australian poetry · An understanding of the desire to define the nation through literary means · The trajectory, possibilities and limitations of this mythologising From a brief analysis of The Bulletin and the work of Patterson and Lawson, we can begin to analyse two competing thematic poles in the development of Australian poetry: the pastoral versus the urban. The fixation with defining Australia through a national identity uniquely tied to the mythological conquest of land opens up and defines much of the national literary psyche. Readings: Matthew Hall ‘Defining Nations: modernist literature in Australia and the Pacific Islands’ in The Modernist World, Eds. Allana Lindgren and Stephen Ross (New York: Routledge: 2015) 265-272. Banjo Patterson ‘The Man From Snowy River‘ ‘A Mountain Station’ ‘The Man From Ironbark’ Henry Lawson ‘In the Days When The World Was Wide’ ‘The Ballad of The Drover’ ‘Song of the Old Bullock Driver’ Class Two Heroes and Icons: From Ned Kelly to Dundalli and Yagan Learning Objectives: · This class will focus on the earliest known Indigenous writing · Defining and framing the historicising of Australia through colonial history instead of a colonial-Indigenous history. · Thinking about the origins of ‘terra nullius’ and its implications on Indigenous people as subject. Readings: Audio: http://poetryandpoetics.org/michael-farrell-on-australian-unsettlement/ Bennelong: ‘Letter to Mr Phillips’ (attachment) We might also do well to read Chris Wallace-Crabe’s poem ‘Bennelong’, which updates some of the life story of Bennelong. David Unaipon: A Review of David Unaipon’s 'Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines' (attachment) Extra Readings: Smith, Keith Vincent 2012. Bennelong’s letter expresses authentic Aboriginal voice. The Australian, Dec 29. < http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/bennelongs-letter-expresses-authentic-aboriginal-voice/ story-fn9n8gph-1226544151916> van Toorn, Penny. Bennelong's Letter [online]. In: van Toorn, Penny. Writing Never Arrives Naked: Early Aboriginal Cultures of Writing in Australia. Canberra, A.C.T.: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2006: 54-70. Availability: Class Three Early Progenitors: Modernist Influences and the Poetry of Possibility Learning Objectives · To identify the possible trajectories of Modernist aesthetics in Australia · To understand the divide in Australia poetry between a rooteness to the past and possibilities of progress · To identify the unique aspect of Australian modernism Reading Philip Mead: Nation, Literature, Location (attachment) Kenneth Slessor ‘Five Visions of Captain Cook’ ‘South Country’ Christopher Brennan 'D.M Stephane Mallarme' [Deep mists of longing blur the land...] Mary Gilmore (attachments) ‘Nationality’ ‘Eve Song’ Class Four Judith Wright and Lesbia Harford Learning Objectives · To highlight the developing class, sexed and racial politics being contemplated by female writers · To identify the constraints of the national cannon and the confines of the margins Readings Ann Vickery ‘An Uncanny Vernacular: Comparing the Radical Modernisms of Lorine Niedecker and Lesbia Harford’ Lyn McCredden on Judith Wright www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/poetics/4084738 Judith Wright (in attachments) ‘For New England’ ‘Bullocky’ ‘Nigger’s Leap’ ‘Australia 1970’ ‘Two Dreamtimes’ Lesbia Harford (in attachments) ‘Grotesque’ ‘A Bronte Legend’ ‘Blouse Machinist’ Further Reading Lyn McCredden ‘Through a Web of Language: landscapes of perception in the poetry of Judith Wright’ (p18-29) in Bridgings: Readings in Australian Women’s Poetry, Eds. Rose Lucas and Lyn McCredden (OUP 1996). Class Five Ern Malley and the Angry Penguins Learning objectives and resources On completion of this topic, students should be able to * understand Australian modernism as related to but also differentiated from European modernism. * understand how a hoax may function as a form of literary critique. * consider how literature and, indeed, an invented author may have cultural value beyond the control of its originator. Reading Malley, Ern, The Darkening Ecliptic, Jacket 17 (June 2002). Web. http://jacketmagazine.com/17/ern-poems.html. Focusing on poems: ‘Durer: Innsbruck 1495’ ‘Night Piece’ ‘Documentary Film’ ‘Culture as Exhibit’ Thompson, John, The Ern Malley Story, ABC (1959). Panel includes in order of appearance, James McAuley, Harold Stewart, Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, and Max Harris. Atherton, Cassandra, '"Fuck All Editors": The Ern Malley Affair and Gwen Harwood's Bulletin Scandal' Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 26 issue 72, 2002, pp. 149-157. (in attachments) Class Six Generation ‘68 Learning Objectives · to identify the counter-cultural influence on Australian poetry · to identify a major break from poetic traditions · to identify the origins of contemporary Australian experimentation and contemporary poetry Readings John Kinsella ‘Groups and Mavericks’ (Cambridge Histories Online: Cambridge University Press 2011). 473-497 (attachments) Poems Gig Ryan ‘You Benefit’ ‘If I had a gun’ ‘Eurydice’s Suburb’ (attachments) John Forbes ‘Speed, A Pastoral’ ‘On The Beach’ J.S. Harry (in attachments) ‘Standing in front of a Woman Artist’s Portrait of a Pelican’ 'Ultimately' 'tell Me What you see Vanishing' Robert Adamson 'On Not seeing Paul Cezanne' 'Looking into a Bowerbird's Eye' 'Out From the Shore the river Glides Slowly' Additional Readings Corey Wakeling ‘John Forbes' Miraculous Fluidity’ http://cordite.org.au/essays/miraculous-fluidity/ Class Seven Migration, Diaspora and the transformation of the 'Australian' voice Learning Objectives · To consider how changing social policies in the 1980s changed Australian literature · Considering Australian poetry as a springboard for reflecting changing social definition · Challenging the hegemonic norms of Australian poetry, expression and limits of exclusion Readings Ann Vickery and Ali Alizadeh : Political Imagination: postcolonialism and diaspora in contemporary Australian poetry. Southerly 73.1(2013) 7-21. Poems Ouyang Yu (attachment) 'The ungrateful immigrant’ ‘Being Difficult’ ‘An identity CV’ ‘Fuck You Australia’ Ania Walwicz (attachment) 'Australia' 'Little red Riding Hood' 'Poland' 'New World' Extra Readings Adam Aiken Asian-Australian Diasporic Poets: http://cordite.org.au/essays/asian-australian-diasporic-poets-commentary/ Class Eight Sexuality and Difference Learning Outcomes · Identify the pressures and inhibitions of writing sexuality in Australia · To read a historic series of poems detailing sexuality and sexual difference · To conceptualise the performance and production of masculinity and femininity at intersection with nationalism Readings: Michael Farrell, Jill Jones: Introductions: Out of The Box: An Anthology of Gay and Lesbian Poetry from Australia (Puncher and Wattman) 2014. (attachment) Poems (in attachment) Michael Farrell 'making love to a man' 'bag boy' 'proust aboard a doomed corvette' David Malouf 'Like our first Paintbox' Pam Brown 'This is all' Jill Jones 'futures and stardust' Angela Gardner 'Bel Canto' Chris Edwards 'Missing Something' Class Nine Indigenous Writing Now Learning Outcomes: · To define how indigenous writing is concepualised in Australia · To acknowledge the history of Australian Indigenous Poetry · To stake a claim for indigenous futurities and literature Readings: Natalie Harkin: The Poetics of Remaping: memory in the blood. (attachment) Poems Oodgeroo (Kath Walker) ' No More Boomerang' Lionel Fogarty 'Kath Walker' 'You Who may Read my Words' Natalie Harkin (week nine attachments) 'Boat People' 'Domestics' 'Nationalism' Ali Cobby Eckermann 'thunder raining poison' Extra Readings: Peter Minter, The Whitewashing of Indigenous poetry : http://jacket2.org/commentary/material-criticism Class Ten Futurities Learning outcomes · To assess the potentialities for the future of Australian poetry · To discuss the international intersections with poetic development · Readings Ann Vickery: Against Colony Collapse Disorder; or, Settler Mess in the Cells of Contemporary Australian Poetry. http://cordite.org.au/essays/against-colony-collapse/ Poems from Alison Whittaker Chi Tran (Attachment) Omar Sakr (attachement) Vernon Ah Kee