Papers by Cassandra L Atherton
Routledge eBooks, Apr 4, 2022
Axon, Dec 1, 2022
Imperial Greek rhetoricians defined ecphrasis as ‘descriptive speech which brings the subject sho... more Imperial Greek rhetoricians defined ecphrasis as ‘descriptive speech which brings the subject shown before the eyes with visual vividness’ (Squire 2015: n.p.), since which time understandings of ekphrasis have evolved and narrowed. Recently, however, definitions of ekphrasis have been expanding to incorporate new media, digital images and augmented reality that engage with haptic and auditive experiences. The ancient concept of 'energeia'—‘the evocation of a visual scene in all its details and colours’ (Cave 1976: 6)—is relevant to these new understandings, including in the presentation of the kind of archival material housed in the Helen Shea collection at Emerson College. Digital ekphrasis, such as one finds in the 'Klimt: The Immersive Experience' installation, open up possibilities for fluid and wide-ranging representations of archival material, along with powerful considerations of this material’s relationships to complex social interactions. Such digital ekphrasis is able to evoke visual scenes in great detail and cast new and creative light on ekphrastic relationships.
Text, Oct 30, 2019
A great deal of what any of us know and feel is elusive, and much of what we 'know' is at the per... more A great deal of what any of us know and feel is elusive, and much of what we 'know' is at the periphery of consciousness. Sometimes this (often subversive) knowledge or feeling is composed of nearly inaccessible memory material; sometimes it consists of bodily knowledge still being formed into mental concepts and searching for the language in which it may be expressed. This knowledge is often situated on the outskirts of our usual modes of apprehension and -to the extent that we access it at all -is experienced as an intuition, intimation, mood, hint, inkling, suggestion or glimpse. In the right circumstances, writers are able to bring such knowledge into their creative compositions -and, indeed, there is occasionally a sense that art is the medium that finally permits its full expression. As a way of exploring some of our 'peripheral' knowledge through an intuitive creative process, in early 2018 we embarked on a collaborative project to write prose poems (which we exchanged as text messages) exploring the idea of perimeters. To date we have produced a series of prose poems for this ongoing collaborative project. Paul Hetherington has published and/or edited 27 books, including 13 full-length poetry collections and nine chapbooks. Among these are Moonlight on oleander: prose poems (UWAP, 2018) and Palace of memory (RWP, 2019).
Princeton University Press eBooks, Oct 13, 2020
This chapter highlights the tradition of English-language prose poetry by women. It explores what... more This chapter highlights the tradition of English-language prose poetry by women. It explores what women's prose poetries may be — not only in terms of content and approach but in terms of technique and emphasis. The chapter begins by looking at Holly Iglesias's seminal text, Boxing Inside the Box: Women's Prose Poetry (2004), which is the most comprehensive study of women's prose poetry to date. Iglesias advocates for the liberation of women prose poets, using the prose poem box as a metaphor for their containment. Beginning with Carolyn Forché's famous and disturbing prose poem about male power and brutality, “The Colonel,” and ending with C. D. Wright's hybrid prose poem essay, Iglesias's book celebrates women prose poets by giving them space and prominence. Ultimately, the neglect of many women prose poets did not occur because women were not writing prose poems; it is just that many women were not writing the kinds of prose poems that fit the prevalent critical view of what successful prose poems might look like.
Princeton University Press eBooks, Oct 13, 2020
This chapter discusses prose poetry's connection to Romanticism. Although contemporary writer... more This chapter discusses prose poetry's connection to Romanticism. Although contemporary writers take the fragmentary nature of the prose poem for granted, it was once an important innovation to celebrate fragmentary literary forms — an innovation that took hold with the Romantic movement. Given the relationship between prose poetry and the Romantic fragment, comprehending one offers the opportunity to better appreciate the other. Moreover, if “the extended influence of Romantic fragments into Modernist and even Postmodernist poetry” is uncovered, then this underscores the view that the contemporary prose poem is simultaneously a product of postmodernism, modernism, and Romanticism. While contemporary prose poetry is sometimes self consciously fractured and fragmentary, destabilizing and interrupting notions of TimeSpace in ways Romantic writers rarely attempted, the prose poem's Romantic inheritance remains.
Princeton University Press eBooks, Oct 13, 2020
This chapter assesses the American neo-surreal as an influential strand of prose poetry, adapting... more This chapter assesses the American neo-surreal as an influential strand of prose poetry, adapting ideas that originated with the surrealists to challenge assumptions about how the world should be understood, and prose-poetic narratives ought to be read. The term “neo-surrealism” does not have to be restrictive but may be used as a way of opening up an understanding of certain key features of prose poetry internationally. And while American prose poets are certainly not the first to experiment with surrealism, many contemporary American prose poets demonstrate a particular interest in absurdism and neo-surrealism. As a result, neo-surrealism is arguably best exemplified by American prose poets — in terms of the number of writers employing such techniques and the quality of neo-surrealistic works being written. Notwithstanding its contemporaneity, the neo-surrealistic strand of prose poetry maintains a clear — if sometimes lateral — connection to the strange and often dreamlike works produced by nineteenth-century French prose poets such as Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud.
Princeton University Press eBooks, Oct 13, 2020
The chapter examines the rhythms of prose poetry, which are different from those found in metered... more The chapter examines the rhythms of prose poetry, which are different from those found in metered verse, and vary, too, from the rhythms of free verse. The main differences relate to what has sometimes been understood as a deficiency in prose poetry — namely, that prose poets do not have meter or the poetic line when they try to achieve effects of cadence or musicality. But because of the English language's grammatical flexibility, these resources allow for an almost infinite rhythmic variety in prose poems. Such variety is a crucial part of the prose poetry tradition, notwithstanding the deliberately fractured rhythms or flat tonality of some works. William Wordsworth wrote lineated poetry, but in expressing a view that prose and poetry ought to be written in the same kind of language, and in repudiating what he understood to be “poetic diction,” Wordsworth opened the way for English-language poets to explicitly recognize the connections between poetry and prose. In other words, he helped to lay the ground not only for English-language free verse but for English-language prose poetry, too.
Axon: Creative Explorations
Australian Poetry Journal, 2021
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Papers by Cassandra L Atherton