Tag: AJ Carruthers

The Australian Neo-Avant-Garde: Beginnings, 1973-1992

SoutherlyBlog

by A.J. Carruthers   It is imperative that studies of the neo-avant-garde in Australia, and I think avant-garde studies in general, strike a balance between theory and history. One cannot just have a history of the avant-garde: a slew of good examples without a theory of what it is that makes these examples avant-garde (and in poetry, to catalogue an exhibit of key works without interrogating their poetics and aesthetics). Neither can one simply have a theory of the avant-garde that doesn’t take into account its specific histories, especially transcultural avant-gardes, those outside centres of cultural influence, those that cross…

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Australian Experimental Poetry: Critical and Historical Perspectives

SoutherlyBlog

by A.J. Carruthers These blog posts will contain some critical explorations, reflections and polemics concerning my second book project titled The Languages of Invention: Australian Experimental Poetry and Literary History, 1973-2014. This project comes after Stave Sightings: Notational Experiments in North American Long Poems, 1961-2011,[i] a book I have called a “critical experiment” which examines the use of notational methods and actual musical scores in expansive works by Langston Hughes, Armand Schwerner, BpNichol, Joan Retallack and Anne Waldman. These are disruptive and radical case studies, poetries that test our reading practices, oftentimes engaging in trenchant cultural critique through the registers…

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March Monthly Blogger – AJ Carruthers

SoutherlyNews

Many thanks to Allison Whittaker for an excellent series of blogs. This month our blogger is A.J. Carruthers. A.J. Carruthers is a critic and experimental poet, author of Stave Sightings: Notational Experiments in North American Long Poems, 1961-2011 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and a lifelong long poem, the first book of which is AXIS Book 1: Areal (Sydney: Vagabond, 2014). Other titles include The Tulip Beds: Toneme Suite (Vagabond, 2011), Ode to On Kawara (Buffalo: Hysterically Real, 2016) and Opus 16 on Tehching Hsieh (Oakland: GaussPDF, 2016). He works as an editor for Rabbit Poetry Journal and founded SOd press in 2011. From…

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