Reflection: humour in poetry: in praise of the light touch

While humour can be defined as something that is fun or amusing, it can also reference something much darker, such as l’humeur noir. André Breton’s Anthology of Black Humor, the first of its kind, was intended to “showcase…the Surrealist conception of humor” according to his translator, Mark Polizzoti (1997: v). The prose poems in this selection are often surreal and use a kind of gallows humour to discuss death and abandonment.

Poetry and prose as pedagogical tools for addressing difficult knowledges: translocational positionality and issues of collective political agency

In this paper the focus is on the possibilities that poetry and prose offer as pedagogical tools that can both accommodate and address difficult and painful knowledges. The paper presents and analyses poems and prose written by students at a non-traditional secondary school for disadvantaged girls (many of whom identify as Indigenous Australian). Through stories of grief and pain, but also hope and possibility, the poetry/prose book signifies a sense of collective political agency against oppressive relations towards the girls creating new moulds of existence. Contra to dominant approaches to recognising and valuing Indigeneity in schools, these writings represent Indigenous culture as a complex, dynamic and contingent social practice. While it is contended that a valuing of marginalised cultures is an important aspect of cultural recognition, the paper argues that a broader and more critical focus is required in beginning to address Indigenous oppressions.

Whiteout: writing collaborative online poetry as inquiry

This article shares an experimental poem created by three poet-researchers using an online word processor to collaboratewithin a single document. We attempt to blur the line between creative and academic writing, focusing on the possibilities for writing as a method of inquiry and the opportunities for different perceptions of being that it suggests. Our project unfolds as we also produce a brief diffractive reading that does not mirror or deconstruct the poem, but thinks it in an alternative way, as a broader collaboration, or intra-action between entities, both human and non-human. We avoid determining how our purported individual voices merge to form any united voice. Rather, we are alert to agencies and flows that complicate understandings of us as three rational, discrete, fully formed human figures articulating coherent narratives. We therefore offer a response to theoretical calls to explore collaborative writing as inquiry, through sharing our practice.

Towards \'wild mind\': The poetry of Gary Snyder

An interdisciplinary study of the renowned poet Gary Snyder, tracing the development of his concept of Wild Mind: a philosophical approach that seeks to reconfigure our relationship to the environment.