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'Unanimal, Counterfeit, Scurrilous is a work of wild erudition and rococo elaboration, a collection of poems that loosely channels the dynamic of desire and inhibition in Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice. The poems follow the trajectory of the ageing Aschenbach’s pursuit of youth and beauty, transmuting his yearning and resistance into jittery flirtations with longing, decay and abandonment against a backdrop of political violence. The poems have an exuberant candour, formed by polyphonic allusions which enact the intersectionality of the speaker; by turns melodramatic, flirtatious, satirical. Like the tragic protagonist of Death in Venice, Cayanan’s collection manifests a longing for extroversion sabotaged by its own will. It is a queer performance of anxiety and abeyance, in which the poems’ speakers obsessively rehearse who they are, and what they may be if finally spoken to.'
Source : publisher's blurb
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Blurring the Lines : Three New Poetry Collections
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 432 2021; (p. 55-56)
— Review of Unanimal, Counterfeit, Scurrilous 2021 selected work poetry ; Errant Night 2021 selected work poetry ; I Said the Sea Was Folded : Love Poems 2021 selected work poetry
-
Blurring the Lines : Three New Poetry Collections
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 432 2021; (p. 55-56)
— Review of Unanimal, Counterfeit, Scurrilous 2021 selected work poetry ; Errant Night 2021 selected work poetry ; I Said the Sea Was Folded : Love Poems 2021 selected work poetry