Room 6, Building 8 (Rotunda), Monash University, Clayton (next to Library)
Symposium celebrating the writings and influences of
poet, art critic and publisher Ken Bolton.
Presented with the assistance of the Monash Literary
Studies Research Unit and Deakin Centre for Memory, Imagination and Invention.
Ken Bolton has been a leading figure in postmodern Australian
poetry since the 1970s. His many volumes include the recent books The Circus,
A Whistled Bit of Bop and Sly Mongoose; his collaborative texts with
John Jenkins have appeared in numerous editions and also been widely
anthologised. As editor of the literary journals Magic Sam and Otis Rush, and through Sea Cruise and Little Esther Books, Bolton has made a
significant contribution to small press publishing over several decades. He is
also an art critic, based at Adelaide’s Experimental Art Foundation since the early
1980s, where he runs Dark Horsey Bookshop.
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/bolton-ken
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/bolton-ken
11.15-11.30: John Hawke, Introduction
11.30-12: John Jenkins, “Twenty-Four Years of
Collaboration”
John Jenkins
has written seventeen books,
mostly non-fiction and
poetry, and
edited anthologies of
short fiction.
He has
worked extensively as
a journalist and arts
writer. His
most recent
books are
the poetry
collection Growing Up With Mr Menzies; and
travel writing,
Traveler’s
Tales of Old Cuba.
Website: johnjenkins.com.au
12-12.30: Sam
Moginie, “Amongst Modernisms: Reading Ken Bolton in the 1970s”
Sam Moginie resides
in Marrickville, and
is a doctoral
candidate at the
University of Sydney
reading the Australian
poetry of the
1970s. He blogs
occasionally at moremeteos.tumblr.com.
LUNCH 12.30-1.30
1.30-2: Duncan
Hose, “Poetry Hauntologues: Erotics of Influence in Frank O'Hara the Younger”
Duncan Hose is a poet, painter and academic scholar. His latest book of poems, One Under Bacchus, was published in 2011 by Inken Publisch, who also released his first collection, Rathaus, in 2007. In 2010 he was the recipient of the Newcastle Poetry Prize. He is currently completing a thesis at the University of Melbourne on self-mythologising in the poetry of Frank O'Hara, Ted Berrigan and John Forbes.
2-2.30: Ann
Vickery, “Taking Poetry to the Beach: Ken Bolton and the Coalcliff Years”
Ann Vickery is
a Senior
Lecturer in
Literary Studies
at Deakin
University in
Melbourne. She
is the
author of
Leaving Lines of Gender: A Feminist Genealogy of Language Writing (Wesleyan UP,
200), Stressing the Modern: Cultural Politics in Australian Women’s Poetry
(Salt Publishing, 2007)
and co-author with
Maryanne Dever
and Sally
Newman of
The Intimate Archive: Journeys through Private Papers
(National Library
of Australia, 2009).
2.30-3: Tim
Wright, “Up Late Thinking: Digressions on a few poems by Ken Bolton”
Tim Wright is
a PhD candidate
in English/Creative Writing
at Monash University.
He was winner of the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize in 2008, and edited
the anthology Some Sonnets.
3-4.30: Ken
Bolton, Poetry Reading and Discussion
A gay, light-hearted
bastard, Ken Bolton
cuts a moodily romantic
figure within the
dun Australian literary
landscape, his name
inevitably conjuring
perhaps that best
known image of him,
bow-tie askew, lipstick-smeared,
grinning cheerfully
at the wheel of
his 1958 Jaguar D-type,
El Cid.
Born in Sydney in
1949 he works at
the AEAF in Adelaide
and edits Little Esther
Books.
John Jenkins and Ken Bolton will be reading together at
Collected Works, Friday 22 June (6pm).
Contact: john.hawke@monash.edu
