Narrativity and Segmentivity in Contemporary Australian and New Zealand Long Poems and Poem Sequences
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1 NARRATIVITY AND SEGMENTIVITY IN CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND LONG POEMS AND POEM SEQUENCES BY AIRINI JANE BEAUTRAIS A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Victoria University of Wellington 2016 2 3 Abstract The PhD in creative writing comprises a critical and a creative component. This thesis explores how poets utilise verse form in order to support and/or undermine narrativity in long poems or poem sequences, and asks the question: what possibilities are offered by verse form that distinguish poetry from other literary narrative genres? Using Rachel Blau DuPlessis’s concept of segmentivity, I consider how segmentation at various formal levels, including sections within a book, poems within a sequence, stanzas, line- breaks, and metre, can affect the narrativity of a text. I also consider segmentivity in relation to the ways in which a text may be narrativized, and to the interactions between narrative and other text types such as lyric and argument. The theoretical framework for the critical component involves a synthesis of approaches from within the fields of narrative theory and literary criticism. The methodology used is a close reading and analysis of case study texts by six New Zealand and Australian poets, written in the period 1990-2010: Dorothy Porter’s The Monkey’s Mask (1994) and What a Piece of Work (1999); Alan Wearne’s The Lovemakers (2008); Tusiata Avia’s Bloodclot (2009); Bill Sewell’s Erebus: A Poem (1999) and The Ballad of Fifty-One (2003); Anna Jackson’s The Gas Leak (2006) and John Kinsella’s Divine Comedy: Journeys Through a Regional Geography (2008). These texts range in their degree of narrativity from verse novels through narrative sequences to lyric sequences. The local and contemporary context has been chosen for several reasons, including the strong history of narrative poetry in both countries, recent trends towards long narrative poems and poem sequences, a relative lack of scholarship on the poetry of this region and time period, and because of the relevance to my own creative work. This thesis argues that segmentivity can be used with or against narrativity in a long poem or poem sequence, with a range of possible results: from strongly narrative texts such as verse novels through to antinarrative texts and lyric sequences. Different levels of segmentation have different effects on narrativity, the division of a text into individual poems being the most important in the texts under consideration here. It is demonstrated that narrative as a text type can exist alongside other text types, and that 4 segmentivity is important to this interaction, with a bearing on the overall narrativity of a text. The creative component tests and extends the findings of the critical component. It consists of a poem sequence in three parts entitled Flow, on the subject of the Whanganui river. The sequence takes a discontinuous approach to narrative, varies in its approach to temporality, features interplay between narrative and lyric modes, and incorporates underlying arguments on environmental and social themes. 5 Acknowledgements Many thanks are due to my two supervisors, Harry Ricketts and James Brown, who have spent untold hours reading drafts of this thesis and providing valuable feedback. Their dedicated and collegial approach has been much appreciated. Over the past three years I have been fortunate to have been part of a talented and supportive cohort of fellow PhD students at the International Institute of Modern Letters. For their friendship and feedback, I thank Michalia Arathimos, Angela Andrews, Hannah McKie, Steven Toussaint, Anna Sanderson, Helen Heath, Kate Duignan, Sue Orr, Gigi Fenster, Therese Lloyd, Peter Cox, Allan Drew, Amy Leigh Wicks, Alison McLachlan, Monica Macansantos, and Valerie Arvidson. Special thanks to Sue for her careful proofreading of the final draft. I thank Chris Price, John Newton and Elizabeth McMahon for their examination of this thesis, and for the constructive and thought-provoking readings given in their reports. Damien Wilkins, Chris Price, Clare Moleta and Katie Hardwick-Smith, along with other staff of the IIML, have provided support and guidance in many ways. Some of the poems in the creative component have been published in print and online journals and zines. Thanks are due to the editors of Landfall, Overland, Blackmail Press, Food Court, Sport, IKA and SWAMP. I would like to acknowledge the people who have provided me with information and stories relating to the Whanganui catchment, river and town: Stephen King, Nelson Lebo, Lieze Thomson, Michael Goessi, and my parents Margie and Keith Beautrais. I would also like to acknowledge the tangata whenua and the people whose histories I have drawn from in writing the creative component. Josef Beautrais provided generous assistance with the making of maps for Flow. Data from LINZ was used, along with imagery from Geographx. For helping with my children, travelling with me, putting me up, and for being there, I would like to thank Emily Beautrais, Josef Beautrais, Tom McDonald, Linda Liu, Cat Atkinson and Ron Fisher, Lola and Calexico, Myles, Melissa, Cosette and Felix Guy, Bärbel and Wolfram Grübsch, Sarah Helm, Michalia, Ira and Niko, and Wai 6 Ho. Most importantly I acknowledge the significant support of my parents in helping care for two pre-schoolers while I worked on this thesis. I would also like to acknowledge the institutions in which my children have been cared for and educated over the past three years: Rapanui-Brunswick Playcentre, Central Baptist Kindergarten and Early Learning Centres, Onerahi Kindergarten, and Onerahi Primary School. It has been a blessing to know my boys have been in safe hands. Much love and thanks to Norman, Lukas and Felix Grübsch. 7 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 3 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... 5 Critical Component: Narrativity and Segmentivity in Contemporary Australian and New Zealand Long Poems and Poem Sequences ...................................................................... 9 Part 1: Introduction to the Critical Component .............................................................. 11 1.1 Narrative in poetry: Historical contexts, the position of poetry within contemporary narrative theory, and the relevance of verse form to the study of narrative poetry ........................................................................................................... 11 1.2 Narratology and its relationship to poetry ............................................................. 19 1.3 Defining narrativity ............................................................................................... 21 1.4 Segmentivity and verse form ................................................................................ 29 1.5 Contexts: Contemporary Australian and New Zealand long poems and poem sequences ..................................................................................................................... 33 1.6 Critical methodology ............................................................................................. 39 Part 2: Case studies ......................................................................................................... 41 2.1 Dorothy Porter’s The Monkey’s Mask and What a Piece of Work ........................ 41 2.2 Alan Wearne’s The Lovemakers ........................................................................... 57 2.3 Tusiata Avia’s Bloodclot ....................................................................................... 75 2.4 Bill Sewell’s Erebus: A Poem and The Ballad of Fifty-One ................................. 89 2.5 Anna Jackson’s The Gas Leak ............................................................................ 105 2.6 John Kinsella’s Divine Comedy: Journeys Through a Regional Geography .... 121 Part 3: Conclusion and Bridging essay ......................................................................... 135 3.1 Conclusion to the Critical Component ................................................................ 135 3.2 Bridging essay to the Creative Component ......................................................... 143 8 Creative Component: Flow ........................................................................................... 149 Works Cited (Critical Component) ............................................................................... 325 Selected Bibliography (Creative Component) .............................................................. 339 9 Critical Component: Narrativity and Segmentivity in Contemporary Australian and New Zealand Long Poems and Poem Sequences 10 11 Part 1: Introduction to the Critical Component 1.1 Narrative in poetry: Historical contexts, the position of poetry within contemporary narrative theory, and the relevance of verse form to the study of narrative poetry It is a critical commonplace that the influential long poems of the modernist era deliberately avoided, frustrated or problematised narrative coherence, continuous narrative being incompatible with their poetic aims.1 One explanation is that writing in a lyric or non-narrative mode provided a distinction between poetry and prose, at a time when the prose novel had risen to precedence.