AustLit

'Poetry has a long history of disruption, resistance, and revolution, overlapping the concerns of politics with literature and the boundaries of language. In globalised, late-stage capitalism, the place of language as a tool for propaganda, denial, and romanticisation is ever shifting to accommodate online engagement metrics and algorithms that alter and manipulate one’s lens onto the world. ‘Late’ as a qualifier for capitalism is used here to loosely encompass the end of the 20th and into the 21st century as a period over which the individualistic ideology of neoliberalism has grown and prospered. Rather than address inequity on a systemic or structural, neoliberal individualism instead charges the consumer with endless self-improvement tasks purported as a way to use systemic oppression to one’s advantage. For Australian poets Ali Alizadeh and Melinda Bufton, writing into and around capitalism means subverting the figure of the individual by positioning the lone poet against the systems of power that uphold inequity and oppression. Both Bufton and Alizadeh identify the hollowing out of language as a key component to capitalistic dominance whether through jargon as elitist gatekeeping or sexism in-built to corporate culture.' (Introduction)