AustLit

'This bilingual Homings and Departures anthology presents the absorbing and compelling poetry of 41 outstanding Australian poets in both English and Mandarin. The anthology is the result of a collaboration between poets, scholars and translators from the China Australia Writing Centre at Curtin University, Western Australia; the International Poetry Studies group at the University of Canberra; and Fudan University in Shanghai. Edited by Lucy Dougan and Paul Hetherington, it reflects the importance of international literary and cultural connections as a way of extending our conceptions of ‘home’ and ‘elsewhere’.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Homings & Departures is a poetry translation project of the China Australia Writing Centre (CAWC) at Curtin and Fudan Universities, and the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI) at the University of Canberra. As worldwide borders close and movements are restricted, the project’s title has gained a pressing new relevance. If bodies cannot travel then words, at least, can. In a spirit of nuanced exchange, CAWC at Curtin and Fudan, along with IPSI, continue their creative collaboration at a time when it is increasingly vital.' (Introduction)

'The following interview with Dennis Haskell was commissioned by Donna Ward, who was then editor and publisher of Indigo: Journal of West Australian Writing. The issue appeared in the Autumn of 2008. In this sense it is a snapshot of Haskell at a particular moment of his rich and on-going career. My particular intention was to trace the ways in which Haskell’s aesthetic and moral orientations as both a poet and a critic stem from his formative experiences, including family background, class, education, reading and the place in which he grew up. Beneath his honest and acute responses one can trace not only the lineaments of Australia’s “poetry wars” but also the impacts of those real wars (WW II, Vietnam and Iraq) on his imaginative life and stance as a poet. Haskell is not a predictable subject to interview. For instance, his statement that “it is important to write about domestic spaces” would perhaps sit at odds with a male poet of his generation. Looking back down the years to this interview with a valued teacher and trojan worker for literature in many countries and many contexts, I would argue that it is Haskell’s iconoclastic character that has kept his practice sharp, surprising and “on song.” The question posed by the poem “Doubt and Trembling” that I discussed with him – “How do we get by/ in a dubious time” – seems in 2019 more relevant than ever.' (Publication abstract)

'I would also like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the land of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation and to pay my respect to their elders past and present.'  (Introduction)

An indelible part of the Brontë mythology is their symbiotic development as young artists in an isolated environment. Some time ago, Juliet Barker’s biographical scholarship on the culture at the parsonage and the Brontë siblings’ lives in Haworth has questioned that isolation in terms of the rich resources available to the Brontës siblings and a family culture that strongly encouraged their imaginative and artistic development. More recently, director Sally Wainwright’s TV movie To Walk Invisiblehas meticulously recreated the dynamic relationship between the Brontës’ childhood fantasy worlds and their adult writing, along with the strategic ways in which the three sisters built a professional path towards their lives as novelists directly through their sibling bonds. Wainwright’s interpretation of the sisters’ creative lives has gone some way in recovering both the weirdness and the ordinariness of the Brontës in it they seem closer (more graspable) than in any recreation of their lives encountered before.' (Introduction)