Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Father At 1.5 Metres: Poems Of Pandemic And Fatherhood, Edward J. Leeming

Theses : Honours

'A Father at 1.5 Metres: Poems of Pandemic and Fatherhood' is a 36 poem collection with a connecting theme of uncertainty informed by John Keats‟ concept of negative capability. Negative capability, a term introduced by Keats in 1817, suggests that a writer is benefitted by a refusal of the formation of concrete ideas, that being in uncertainty without needlessly chasing after truth allows for a better understanding of the world, and of more perspectives in their writing. The negatively capable writer is more open to possibilities and of exploring new ideas; this allows them to pursue what Keats calls “beauty”, …

Aletheia: The Orphic Ouroboros, Glen Mcknight

Theses : Honours

This thesis shows how The Orphic Hymns function as a katábasis, a descent to the underworld, representing a process of becoming and psychological rebirth. I begin with the Greek concept of sparagmόs, a dismemberment or deconstruction, as a necessary precursor in that it emphasises at once both primordial unity and yet also the incipient tensions within the Orphic initiates on this path to katabasis. The argument herein extends beyond literary explication to consider how the Orphics sought to enact this process in Greek society itself.

The thesis then establishes the connections between the Hymns and the thinking of …

A Coat Of Ashes: A Collection Of Poems, Incorporating A Metafictional Narrative - And - Poetry, Daoism, Physics And Systems Theory: A Poetics: A Set Of Critical Essays, Janet Ruth Jackson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis comprises a book-length creative work accompanied by a set of essays. It explores how poetry might bring together spiritual and scientific discourses, focusing primarily on philosophical Daoism (Taoism) and contemporary physics. Systems theory (the science of complex and self-organising systems) is a secondary focus of the creative work and is used metaphorically in theorising the writing process.

The creative work, “A coat of ashes”, is chiefly concerned with the nature of being. It asks, “What is?”, “What am I?” and, most urgently, “What matters?”. To engage with these questions, it opens a space in which voices expressing scientific …

Belonging: A Place For, And In, Children’S Poetry A Hybrid Thesis Including Creative Works, Articles And Exegetical Discussion, Sally Murphy

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This hybrid thesis is comprised of three creative works – two collections of poetry for children and a verse novel – as well as three journal articles examining aspects of children’s poetry, and exegetical discussion of the creative works and of key concepts influencing both the creative and discursive elements of the thesis.

The first creative work, All About Me, is a collection of poetry for early childhood readers and their carers. It consists of 20 poems, and as a finished manuscript mirrors the length of a picture book format collection. The poems explore and highlight aspects of the …

Creativity And Illness: An Anecdotal Exploration Of A Writing Practice; Coming Undone: A Collection Of Poems & A Thesis As An Anecdotal Exploration Of A Writing Practice, Matthew Patrick Roberts

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis combines both creative and critical writing in an exploration of creativity and illness. When I began my candidature, I started writing a novel but found with the diagnosis of chronic illness I could no longer write narrative and was irresistibly drawn to poetry.

The collection of poems was written during the period immediately following the diagnosis of, and during my subsequently living with, a chronic autoimmune illness, and is an expression of the lived experience of both being ill and being a writer. The poems have been separated into three chronological parts, each reflective of the emotional changes …

Constellations – A Space In Time That’S Filled With Moving, Deanne Leber

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Constellations in the sky have been a source of inspiration, in both science and literature, for aeons. Working within the constraints of the ‘official’ 88 constellations, as devised by the International Astronomical Union, this study involved researching the myths and histories of constellations, and then creating a collection of poems based upon those. Thematic connections between the eight modern constellation “families” or groups of constellations were explored and it is in these groupings that the poems work, to tie together, through experimentations with language, a somewhat cohesive fabric of poetry.

Each constellation consists of three poems. The first is a …

Homing : Poetry ; &, An Essay On The Poetic Leap In The Late Work Of R.S. Thomas, Shevaun Cooley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Homing, as a collection, speaks to the capacity and yearning to navigate our way towards something we might call home. In animal behaviour, this seems like an instinct, hard-wired to the body. It is something I envy. By comparison, the instinct, in human behaviour, feels muffled and complicated.

These poems move between two places in which I feel ‘at home’, whatever that means: the south-west of Western Australia, where I was born and raised, and the north-west of Wales, where I lived for a time, and find myself returning to, drawn not by blood, but by longing, and a deep …

Lola Ridge : Poet And Renegade Modernist, Anna Hueppauff

Theses : Honours

This thesis examines the poetry of Lola Ridge as a form of alternative Modernism. Poet, editor, anarchist, Lola Ridge is largely an unknown identity in Modernist discourses. Primarily recognised as a social justice poet, her work has been viewed through a traditional Modernist lens and excluded to the periphery as ‘sentimental’. This thesis argues that Ridge personally and professionally exceeds these categories. She modelled a practice of engagement in her personal life by actively participating in rallies and protests against injustice, and living in poverty in solidarity with the poor, giving her work an authenticity worth investigating. Her poetry provides …

Who Is It That Writes? Poetry And The Plural Self, Christopher Karl Konrad

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

‘Who is it that writes?’ is the central question of this thesis, which consists of a creative and a critical component. The creative work “Letters to Mark” is an attempt to address the questions, as similarly formulated by the poet Fernando Pessoa; who, really, am I? How many am I and, who is it that writes? It is a profoundly personal work, the origins of which reach back to my earliest days when I was first arrested by Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. I have always wanted to ‘answer’ Zarathustra, that is, respond stylistically and address some of Nietzsche’s key ideas …

Vision And Desire: Jim Morrison's Mythography Beyond The Death Of God, Ellen J. Greenham

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The poetry of Jim Morrison, as opposed to his lyric verse, has been the subject of little critical examination. The aim of this paper is to open up an understanding and interpretation of a mythographic landscape developed by Morrison in his response to existence in a demythologised western culture. Through the use of the Greek myth of Oedipus in its entirety, as opposed to the two most universally known events of the adult Oedipus' life, discussion here will attempt to demonstrate that Morrison developed a cohesive, holistic vision of the human condition of existence in the world, and presented a …

Imagining Machines: Time & Image In The Shorter Poems Of William Carlos Williams, Stuart Campbell

Theses : Honours

A discussion of time and image in the shorter poems of William Carlos Williams. The particular focus is Williams' short poems published between the Great War and World War II. The relationship between the form of the poems, and Williams' theories on poetry, as expressed in Spring and All, and The Wedge is examined. In turn, Williams' theories are viewed in the context of Imagism, Objectivist poetics, and the modernist machine aesthetic. Williams' application of these theories is seen to create a poetic form that generates images in the reader's imagination in synchrony with the moment.