20th-Century Australian Poetry

Since becoming a nation at Federation in 1901, the Australian political and literary landscape has undergone immense change. From nationalist unionism to knitting nannas, Gumtrees to crab pots, and the rising voice of Indigenous writing: over two weekends we will explore some of these changes as they are reflected in poetry from the earliest 20th century to the present.

Poems will be made available via moodle two weeks prior to course commencement. Students are asked to obtain and read at least the introduction to one of the following works. Moodle will have a forum where you are asked to share the key points you found in your reading. This assignment is a prerequisite for participation in this compact course. Please note that you may need to use interlibrary loan to get these books so please start already at the beginning of the semester:

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. 2001. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. Repr. New accents. London: Routledge

Carter, Paul and David Malouf. 1989. “Spatial History”. Textual Practice (3:2): 173–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502368908582057. Accessed 09 February 2017

Elliott, Brian. 1967. The Landscape of Australian Poetry. Melbourne: Cheshire Publishing Pty. Ltd.

Elliott, Brian, ed. 1979. The Jindyworobaks. Portable Australian Authors. St. Lucia: Univ. of Queensland Press.

Heiss, Anita and Peter Minter, eds. 2008. Anthology of Australian Aboriginal Literature. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press.

Wheeler, Belinda, ed. 2013. A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature. Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer.

McCooey, David. 2017. “Postcolonial Poetry of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand”. In The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Poetry, edited by Jahan Ramazani, 72–83. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McCredden, Lyn. 2015. “Poetry and the Limits of Language”. Language and Semiotic Studies (Vol 1 No. 4): 95–107

Wright, Judith. 1965. Preoccupations in Australian Poetry. Melbourne: Oxford Univ. Press.

Ward, Stuart James. 2001. Australia and the British Embrace: The Demise of the Imperial Ideal. Carlton South, Vic. Melbourne Univ. Press.