Introduction: New Directions in Contemporary Australian Poetry?

Abstract

While neither a new or novel claim, “Australia” has long been a contested site outside geographic or cultural specificities. In framing their book’s critical atmospheres thus, in their introduction Disney and Hall assert that this anthology writes back against “Australianized” infrastructural scenes. Surveying each group of essays—Indigeneities; Political Landscapes; Space, Place, Materiality; and Revising an Australian Mythos—as modelling dialogic modes, the introduction asserts that this anthology contains myriad modes demonstrating the means by which poet-critics might continue working against historical, structural, epistemic oppressions. The editors argue that this book demonstrates the possibilities of community; each constellation of essays constitutes a direction in contemporary Australian poetry opening onto and enlarging discursive space.