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Intense poetic moments of insight and evocation

by
June 2013, no. 352

The Collected Blue Hills by Laurie Duggan

Puncher & Wattmann, $24 pb, 90 pp, 9781921450198

Intense poetic moments of insight and evocation

by
June 2013, no. 352

In The Resistance to Poetry (2004), James Longenbach claims that ‘Distrust of poetry (its potential for inconsequence, its pretensions to consequence) is the stuff of poetry.’ The Australian poet Laurie Duggan has based a career on a creative distrust of poetry, or at least a certain kind of attitude to poets and poetry. Duggan is especially suspicious of the idea of the poet as inherently interesting. As he said in an interview in 2001, ‘I really don’t think I’m very interesting in any broader sense than my friends must feel. Partly there’s just the sheer amazement that a life – my life – can be written out like this.’

David McCooey reviews 'The Collected Blue Hills' by Laurie Duggan

The Collected Blue Hills

by Laurie Duggan

Puncher & Wattmann, $24 pb, 90 pp, 9781921450198

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Comment (1)

  • "Waterfall, the northern extremity of Sydney": no, the southern
    Posted by Jonathan Shaw
    18 June 2013

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