Back to Books...

Friday's mail bought A.S Byatt's The Children's Book, which I have been seeing a lot in blog land recently and reading some great reviews for, so I am looking forward to reading it. I got a beautifully brand new (looking) copy of it on ebay for $1.00 plus $5.00 postage. When looking for books online, I always look at ebay first to see if I can get a second hand copy, and then at the Book Depository, as they have free international postage. I love Amazon, but the postage to Australia can be prohibitive.



While in Sydney I went to a book launch for, and purchased a copy of, Reading Across the Pacific: Australia - United States Intellectual Histories. A book of papers presented last year at Sydney University and edited by Robert Dixon and Nicholas Birns. A fantastic collection of essays divided into five sections: National Literature and Transnationalism (of particular interest for me for my thesis), Poetry and Poetics (again, great for my thesis which is on Australian poetry), Literature and Popular Culture, The Cold War (I have an avid personal interest in this that I blame on Ginsberg and my Father) and the Publishing History and Transpacific Print Cultures.


In other related news, many of you may be aware of Jacket magazine, the online poetry magazine that was started by John Tranter; well Jacket is moving to Philadelphia to the University of Pennsylvania. The move is ensuring the future of the not for profit, free online magazine. More information will be posted soon on the Jacket website.


In further poetry news, the Australian Poetry Center (AP) is being launched in February this year. The Australian Poetry Center (APC) will see the merger of the existing Australian Poetry Center and the NSW Poets Union. And the online Australian Poetry Library (APRIL), by the University of Sydney was supposed to be launched in December, but it doesn't seem to be online yet, so I will keep an eye out for it. And if you haven't read about it yet, F Scott Fitzgerald joined 600 other authors on the 1st of January in the public domain, meaning the European copyright on his work has expired, so there are free ebooks available now. For more information check out this article. For free ebooks in general, go to Project Gutenberg.


Have a great week!

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Laurie Duggan...

Kurt Schwitters image


I am busy transcribing an interview I was lucky enough to be able to conduct with Laurie Duggan recently while he was in the country, he is a foremost Australian poet, currently residing outside London. He was warm and friendly and answered questions candidly and was very forgiving of the fact that it was my first interview (ever!). Thanks to his professionalism, my lack of experience didn't seem to affect the quality of the interview which will be utilised as primary research for my PhD thesis. It was an exciting experience for me also getting to talk to him and he generously gave me two of his books of poetry and (is this too uncool?) - I got him to sign them for me!



Link to book


It was a real delight to meet him and to discuss his poetry from his early career up until now. His latest book is Crab and Winkle, a great little book of poetry written in Duggan's wonderful journal/ collage/ I do this, I do that, style of writing. There are some good reviews on it here (Jacket magazine) and here (Australian Poetry Review). His writing is an ecclectic mix of so many influences, styles and models; I best way I can describe it is if you can imagine Ezra Pound and William Carlo Williams co-authoring work with Frank O'Hara, Jack Kerouac and Kurt Schwitters. That description pails into insignificance beside his actual work, but his works offer lovely observations, over-heard conversations, quotations from history websites and even graffiti, he combines moments, with reflections, questions, thoughts , etc. etc. to create a really interesting writing style that is all his own. You can also check out Duggan's blog.


I have a new found respect of researchers/ journalists etc. everywhere who transcribe recordings, it is a long, slow process; probably made more tedious but my made-up touch typing style, that can either be fast or accurate, but not both. Have spent a couple of hours typing up the interview and I am only seven minutes in - the interview goes for over an hour - this may take a while!



Kurt Schwitters image

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Laurie Duggan...

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