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'"Sometimes in life you get lucky. Someone of rare vision and remarkable gifts crosses your path ." Fiona Capp, novelist and author of the acclaimed memoir That Oceanic Feeling, was 17 years old when she first met Judith Wright. Everything that followed from this encounter led her, 30 years later, on a journey through the landscapes that made Wright one of Australia's greatest poets and environmental visionaries.
Capp follows in Wright's footsteps through the high tableland of New England, the rainforests of Queensland and the austere bushland outside Canberra, uncovering the land out of which the poetry sprang. Her travels also take the reader through the life of the poet - the early tragedy that shaped her childhood, her complex relationship with her family, and the two great loves of her life - while exploring the well-springs of Wright's art and activism.
Judith Wright sensed in her bones that something had gone profoundly wrong with our attitude to the earth, long before the term "conservationist" entered public discourse. In this intimate and moving memoir, Fiona Capp shows how the "country that built my heart" - as Wright called it - became part of the collective consciousness of the nation; how her poetry created a place that belongs to all of us.' (From the publisher's website.)
Notes
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Dedication: To Meredith McKinney, Pip Bundred and Caroline Mitchell
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Epigraph:
South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country,
rises that tableland, high delicate outline of bony slopes wincing under the winter,
low trees blue-leaved and olive, out-cropping granite-
clean, lean, hungry country...
...South of my days' circle
I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country
full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep.
Judith Wright 'South of My Days' (q.v.)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Electronic resource
Works about this Work
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Rewriting Australian Literature
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian Literature : From Classroom Conversations to National Imaginings 2011; (p. 95-107) 'There are those of us who are trying to rethink the place of Australian literature in our lives, as readers and writers, students and teachers, and as participants in this society and culture. It's happening from different angles: in the academy, in literary studies, cultural studies, and Australian studies, including Australian history, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and in research frameworks; in secondary and primary education, locally and nationally; and in the public domain. It's also happening internationally, through translation, and in the many different spaces where Australian literature might have meaning. Meaning, of course, is a first question and the meanings of both 'Australian' and 'literature' are fluid and routinely contested. Coupling the terms only increased the questioning, raising the stakes to beg the question of whether it is meaningful or necessary to talk about Australian literature at all. What is it? Does it exist? Does it matter anymore, or any differently from any other kind of literature, simply because we happen to be in Australia? Does it have a privileged claim on our attention, or, if it does, is that suspect? Each part of the coupling comes with hefty baggage. 'Australian' brings the national, the nation and the nationalistic, identity and belonging, history and culture, citizenship and inclusion/exclusion. 'Literature' brings not only the literary, but also language, and literacy, questions of reading and writing, and teaching and learning in relation to reading and writing. In particular it brings, for my purposes here, those approaches and practices known as 'creative writing' that in recent decades have entered subject English and more broadly the business of how literature is made is made in our society. 'Creative writing' is an infelicitous term, perhaps, but one we're stuck with, understood as something with many manifestations, widespread popularity and its own complex institutional history. Discussion of these things - creative writing and Australian literature in the curricular context - joins with larger debates about our education and contemporary culture that tend, paradoxically, to adopt a rhetoric of embattlement while taking for granted the importance of both related fields. It is surprising that, in a neoliberal, technocratic, metric-managed world, reading, writing and creativity should retain such power and loom so large.' (Author's abstract)
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Untitled
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , May vol. 3 no. 2 2011;
— Review of My Blood's Country 2010 single work prose -
The Latest Word
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Wet Ink , December no. 21 2010; (p. 50)
— Review of My Blood's Country 2010 single work prose -
My Blood's Country : A Journey Through the Landscapes That Inspired Judith Wright's Poetry by Fiona Capp
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 10 2010;
— Review of My Blood's Country 2010 single work prose -
The Dummy's Arm
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December 2010 - January 2011 no. 327 2010; (p. 69)
— Review of My Blood's Country 2010 single work prose
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[Review] My Blood's Country
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , July vol. 89 no. 9 2010; (p. 39)
— Review of My Blood's Country 2010 single work prose -
From the Personal to the Profound
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 24-25 July 2010; (p. 24-25)
— Review of My Blood's Country 2010 single work prose ; Pirate Rain 2009 selected work poetry -
Language Pushed to the Limit
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 7-8 August 2010; (p. 37)
— Review of My Blood's Country 2010 single work prose -
Armchair Journey
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 14 August 2010; (p. 5) The Sydney Morning Herald , 14-15 August 2010; (p. 5)
— Review of My Blood's Country 2010 single work prose -
Traversing a Poet's Terrain
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 21 August 2010; (p. 22)
— Review of My Blood's Country 2010 single work prose -
In the Footsteps of a Poet
2010
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Age , 3 July 2010; (p. 22) The Sydney Morning Herald , 3-4 July 2010; (p. 30-31) -
Canberra's Hidden Story
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 10 July 2010; (p. 21) -
Rewriting Australian Literature
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Teaching Australian Literature : From Classroom Conversations to National Imaginings 2011; (p. 95-107) 'There are those of us who are trying to rethink the place of Australian literature in our lives, as readers and writers, students and teachers, and as participants in this society and culture. It's happening from different angles: in the academy, in literary studies, cultural studies, and Australian studies, including Australian history, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and in research frameworks; in secondary and primary education, locally and nationally; and in the public domain. It's also happening internationally, through translation, and in the many different spaces where Australian literature might have meaning. Meaning, of course, is a first question and the meanings of both 'Australian' and 'literature' are fluid and routinely contested. Coupling the terms only increased the questioning, raising the stakes to beg the question of whether it is meaningful or necessary to talk about Australian literature at all. What is it? Does it exist? Does it matter anymore, or any differently from any other kind of literature, simply because we happen to be in Australia? Does it have a privileged claim on our attention, or, if it does, is that suspect? Each part of the coupling comes with hefty baggage. 'Australian' brings the national, the nation and the nationalistic, identity and belonging, history and culture, citizenship and inclusion/exclusion. 'Literature' brings not only the literary, but also language, and literacy, questions of reading and writing, and teaching and learning in relation to reading and writing. In particular it brings, for my purposes here, those approaches and practices known as 'creative writing' that in recent decades have entered subject English and more broadly the business of how literature is made is made in our society. 'Creative writing' is an infelicitous term, perhaps, but one we're stuck with, understood as something with many manifestations, widespread popularity and its own complex institutional history. Discussion of these things - creative writing and Australian literature in the curricular context - joins with larger debates about our education and contemporary culture that tend, paradoxically, to adopt a rhetoric of embattlement while taking for granted the importance of both related fields. It is surprising that, in a neoliberal, technocratic, metric-managed world, reading, writing and creativity should retain such power and loom so large.' (Author's abstract)
Awards
- 2012 shortlisted ASAL Awards — The Australian Historical Association Awards — Magarey Medal for Biography
- 2012 shortlisted Festival Awards for Literature (SA) — Award for Non-Fiction
- 2011 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Non-Fiction