508 research outputs found
Between Nihilism and Laughter:Jenna Clake on two collections that explore despair and hope
No full textJenna Clake reviews Claudine Toutoungi's Emotional Support Horse and Caroline Bird's Ambush at Still Lake
Between Nihilism and Laughter:Jenna Clake on two collections that explore despair and hope
No full textJenna Clake reviews Claudine Toutoungi's Emotional Support Horse and Caroline Bird's Ambush at Still Lake
Increments of Noticing:Jenna Clake on three collections that explore the politics of how we engage with the natural world.
No full textIn this review, Jenna Clake reviews three recent ecopoetry collections: Slyvia Legris's The Principle of Rapid Peering; Isabel Galleymore's Baby Schema; and Tim Tim Cheng's The Tattoo Collector
Increments of Noticing:Jenna Clake on three collections that explore the politics of how we engage with the natural world.
No full textIn this review, Jenna Clake reviews three recent ecopoetry collections: Slyvia Legris's The Principle of Rapid Peering; Isabel Galleymore's Baby Schema; and Tim Tim Cheng's The Tattoo Collector
Mslexia:Showcase: Poison
No full textJenna Clake introduces her selection of poem and short stories on the theme of 'poison'
Mslexia:Showcase: Poison
No full textJenna Clake introduces her selection of poem and short stories on the theme of 'poison'
'Rat Phones, Alligators, Lemon Pepper Wet:The New Absurd in Atlanta'
No full textIn his review of the television series Atlanta (dir. Hiro Murai 2016, 2018), Jesse David Fox comments on the series’ closeness to the Theatre of the Absurd, disputing creator Donald Glover’s statement that Atlanta is ‘Twin Peaks with rappers’ (2016). Fox opines that each episode is an Absurdist play. In this chapter, Jenna Clake argues that Atlanta should be understood in terms of what she has elsewhere termed the new literary aesthetic of the New Absurd (Clake 2018), and is thus at least as much akin to Absurdist poetry as to drama. Clake argues that in an era of political and social turmoil on both sides of the Atlantic – where issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality are irrevocably linked with concerns of how individuals can survive in a capitalist society – a new iteration of the Absurd has emerged. In this chapter, using examples and theory from Absurd drama, and poems by Rachael Allen, Jennifer L. Knox, and Luke Kennard, Clake compares Atlanta and poems of the New Absurd thematically, rather than in terms of their mediality. She explores the New Absurd and Atlanta’s focus on perpetual disappointment, and explicates their focus on ‘static quests’, the loss of grand narratives, and human fallibility in the face of neoliberalism. She demonstrates how these concerns deliberately foster readers’ and viewers’ investment in conspiracy theories, and thereby establishes that Atlanta treats its viewers as readers of New Absurdist poetry, deliberately undermining the viewers’ critical perceptions and understanding of narrative. <br/
<i>La Errante</i> #1:Reviewed by Jenna Clake
No full textLa Errante, a new multi-lingual zine of poetry and illustration, unfolds like album artwork to reveal a poster sized collaboration of art and poetry. The editors explain that ‘words and pictures are on equal footing’ in the journal. Everything is cohesively blue and white with touches of black. Word and image sit side-by-side, but also intersect: Fiona Sampson and Rikardo Arregi’s poems are placed over a large, thick, sweeping brushstroke. ‘Errante’ translates to ‘wandering’ in English, and these large brushstrokes and artworks lead the reader’s eye across the page
<i>Sonnets</i> by Noelle Kocot:Reviewed by Jenna Clake
No full textIn Sonnets, Noelle Kocot turns the sonnet on its head until it is just recognisable (the jumble of ‘Sonnets’ and Kocot’s name on the cover indicates this). She adheres loosely to her titular form: all the sonnets are roughly Shakespearean, consisting of three quatrains and a couplet, but none of them rhyme in a regular pattern or follow a strict metre. The traditional Italian sonnet was concerned with love, but love appears here in other guises, such as grief for a person who has been lost, and sometimes in feminist spells. Other sonnets explore mental health and existential questions. In the opening poem, ‘Mourning’, the speaker’s emotions are laid bare
<i>Sonnets</i> by Noelle Kocot:Reviewed by Jenna Clake
No full textIn Sonnets, Noelle Kocot turns the sonnet on its head until it is just recognisable (the jumble of ‘Sonnets’ and Kocot’s name on the cover indicates this). She adheres loosely to her titular form: all the sonnets are roughly Shakespearean, consisting of three quatrains and a couplet, but none of them rhyme in a regular pattern or follow a strict metre. The traditional Italian sonnet was concerned with love, but love appears here in other guises, such as grief for a person who has been lost, and sometimes in feminist spells. Other sonnets explore mental health and existential questions. In the opening poem, ‘Mourning’, the speaker’s emotions are laid bare
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