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'All poetry, not just Australian poetry, is always in need of products that supply art, intellect and satiric bite. This is why Grand Parade Poets is very pleased to announce the publication of Whirlwind Duststorm, a new volume of poetry by John Hawke, which certainly possesses all three.
'Consciousness is like the experience of the poem – of being in perpetual motion, constantly distracted by the images before us. Embroiled in this storm, we are travelling, pummelled, unable to find firm footing, and yet shaped and honed by different influences, some of which are merely peripheral, and many of which emerge from class. Identity, personal history and narrative are called into question, leaving us with the poem as the only permanence.
'“Whirlwind Duststorm points at an answer to Hölderlin’s question about the purpose of poets in destitute times.” – Liam Ferney' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Details and Disorientation : A Language to Justify Thought
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 435 2021; (p. 48-49)
— Review of Whirlwind Duststorm 2021 selected work poetry'In the epigraph to this collection, a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre on Edmund Husserl suggests that we are entering a poetic that challenges the possibility of conscious knowledge; consciousness is itself a maelstrom that extrudes the intruder and has ‘no inside’. What follows is both a refutation and embracement of this assertion in chatoyant language that is as thoughtful and melodic as it is powerful. The reader is obliged to work hard to navigate the narrative, and I have rarely read poetry where the search for meaning has been felt so deeply.' (Introduction)
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John Hawke : Whirlwind Duststorm
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Review , no. 16 2021;
— Review of Whirlwind Duststorm 2021 selected work poetry 'Poems come claiming many different identities. There are those that aspire to be no more than songs, those that exemplify a previously worked out aesthetic theory, those that worry at an aspect of their author’s inner life, those (“I do this, I do that” poems) that want to take a slice of random individual experience of the world, those that are slabs of discourse engaged with issues of the world, and so on. The feeling I have about the fine and rather unsettling poems of John Hawke’s second book is that they aspire to be strong, free-standing objects. And I don’t mean by this that they are just tightly structured well-made pieces – though they are that – rather that they shun being dependent on meaning for their strength and stability. At the same time, they don’t seem to relate to the generative imperatives of Surrealist poetry where, in that deeply French way, unity derives from development out of a single unified process.' (Introduction)
-
John Hawke : Whirlwind Duststorm
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Review , no. 16 2021;
— Review of Whirlwind Duststorm 2021 selected work poetry 'Poems come claiming many different identities. There are those that aspire to be no more than songs, those that exemplify a previously worked out aesthetic theory, those that worry at an aspect of their author’s inner life, those (“I do this, I do that” poems) that want to take a slice of random individual experience of the world, those that are slabs of discourse engaged with issues of the world, and so on. The feeling I have about the fine and rather unsettling poems of John Hawke’s second book is that they aspire to be strong, free-standing objects. And I don’t mean by this that they are just tightly structured well-made pieces – though they are that – rather that they shun being dependent on meaning for their strength and stability. At the same time, they don’t seem to relate to the generative imperatives of Surrealist poetry where, in that deeply French way, unity derives from development out of a single unified process.' (Introduction) -
Details and Disorientation : A Language to Justify Thought
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 435 2021; (p. 48-49)
— Review of Whirlwind Duststorm 2021 selected work poetry'In the epigraph to this collection, a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre on Edmund Husserl suggests that we are entering a poetic that challenges the possibility of conscious knowledge; consciousness is itself a maelstrom that extrudes the intruder and has ‘no inside’. What follows is both a refutation and embracement of this assertion in chatoyant language that is as thoughtful and melodic as it is powerful. The reader is obliged to work hard to navigate the narrative, and I have rarely read poetry where the search for meaning has been felt so deeply.' (Introduction)
