Here are the questions we generated in class the other day. Use them as a springboard for your own personal research:
1. How did her father die?
2. What is "esoteric symbolism"?
3. What does "oeuvre" mean?
4. Why does she not acknowledge other New Zealand poets (apart from Ursula Bethell) as having influenced her?
5. Is her status as an "ambivalent outsider" related to issues of national identity?
6. Who are the "lake poets"?
7. Why is she so "anti-erotica"?
8. Why does she translate Latin and Romanian poetry?
9. Why didn't her marriages last?
10. Does she have siblings?
11. How did she and her former husband decide which son would live with who?
12. How does she feel about her national identity?
13. What made her return visit to New Zealand in the 1970s so traumatising?
14. What has made her return since then?
15. Why did her family return to New Zealand after World War II?
16. Which poetry of hers helped her to win the Queen's Medal?
17. Why does she always write her poems as an outsider?
18. How many poems has she published?
These questions are a good starting point for your own investigation of Fleur Adcock's life and poetry. A helpful website could be http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=11940, where you'll find an excellent interview with FA.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Who are the "lake poets"?
The lake poets are William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. They lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the 19th Century. Their work is considered part of the Romantic Movement (a movement in literature and art during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that celebrated nature rather than civilisation).
Does she have siblings?
Yes, Fleur's sister Marilyn Duckworth is also a writer. She has published twelve novels, a novella, a collection of short stories and a collection of poems.
What does 'oeuvre' mean?
An oeuvre is a substantial body of work constituting the lifework of a writer, artist or composer.
Which poetry of hers helped her to win the Queen's Medal?
Adcock published a book called "Poems 1960-2000" which is the book of poems that she was awarded the queen's medal for. The book is over 300 pages long and includes the poems 'A Rose Tree', 'Weathering' and 'Things'.
"How does she feel about her national identity?"
According to the interview, Fleur Adcock regards herself as English by her residence, allegiance and emotional orientation.
She does not deny she is a New Zealander, but she doesn't consider herself a New Zealand writer. Yet we continue to include her in our anthologies. It is easy to see why she feels as though New Zealand won't release its claim over her. This may have played some part in making her short return so 'traumatic'.
She refers to NZ as a "self-analytical, self-obsessed nationalistic society", which indicates that, even now, she has strong feelings of resentment towards the country. Despite this, she is fascinated by questions of national identity and rootedness. The feelings of being a 'perpetual outsider' are what she believes her poems thrive on.
Does she have siblings?
Wikipedia told me she has a sister called Marilyn Duckworth, who is a novelist.
Why does Fleur Adcock write anti erotica?
Fleur celebrated at times, for her anti-erotica. I think this is because she has a painful past that makes it hard for to relive through poetry. “potential psychic scarrings of the most intimate betrayals.” She subverts the poetic license for erotica in favor of different topics. She is praised for her classic and restrained voice. This is backed up in Nauranga Gorge Hill were she invokes “procreative images” and asks for forgiveness, this seems like she has a lapse in her conservative veil.
Which poetry of hers helped her to win the Queen's Medal?
The award was made for her collected works, Poems, 1960-2000.
What is "esoteric symbolism"?
Um I didn't find an exact answer for this but with esoteric meaning 'only understood by the select few who have special knowledge or interest', I presume that it's got to do with symbolism that only the ones who take special interest in, can understand.. if that makes sense.
Why does she write her poems as an outsider?
I think it is because she sees herself as an outsider, she does not belong anywhere which is the sense I get from the poems we have studied because she speaks negatively most of the time.
However in 'On a Son Returned to New Zealand' I think she is very much a part of the poem, she is not an outsider and I think this is because she feels like she belongs with her son, though they are not in the same place.
Esoteric symbolism is the use of symbolism that will only be understood by a small or select group of people.
So in relation to Adcock we could say that her use of esoteric symbolism can be seen in her descriptions of New Zealand that only New Zealanders (and perhaps even a smaller portion of the NZ population) will really understand.
Adcock's status as an ambivalent outsider can definitely be seen as related to the issue of her national identity, or perhaps her lack thereof. Her inner conflict over her 'home', perhaps aggravated by her rejection of New Zealand, is expressed in her writing not only in the aggressive stance she takes against New Zealand, but also in her stubbornly positive outlook of the despairing picture of London she paints.
"It's cold, it's foggy,
the traffic's as abominable as ever,
and there across the Thames is County Hall,
that uninspired stone body, floodlit.
It makes me laugh. In fact, it makes me sing. "
London traffic is enough to make anyone cry and so I'm pretty sure that the above statement is more one of denial than truth. This same denial can be seen in the rather nice pictures of the New Zealand country she paints, and then destroys with a single closing line. So perhaps the cause of the conflict isn't in fact the countries themselves but the people that reside within them. (Say, her husband.)
"What has made her return [to New Zealand] since then [1975, 1976]?"
Adcock states she has returned to New Zealand for book festivals, but there arguments about who pays for her to come, as she is a 'traitor' and is always stating her dislike for New Zealand.
The festival organisers may not want to pay for Adcock to come to the festival if she is just going to hate her time here. They may also not want to seem desperate, as Adcock seems to take New Zealanders' goodwill in inviting her to festivals and into anthologies as 'being unable to let her go'....
....Which is a tad presumptious and self-absorbed in my opinion.
Why didn't her marriage last?
Adcocks marriage didn't last because she simply became restless. Initially she got married to be taken seriously
"nobody took you seriously in the 50s unless you had a bloke or were married or something. You couldn't get away from home, you couldn't shack up because that was immoral. You weren't anyone. All the things Sylvia Plath suffered from."
After awhile Adcock got tired of being a housewife, no longer dressing up or missing out on her youth and eventually decided that she did not want to be with him anyway. Her restless nature is echoed a lot in her poems.
Also Alistair Campbell added 'Te Ariki' to his name after realizing his grandfather was a chief. In Stewart Island, Adcock makes a remark about maori men with Scottish names... This seems to be angled at Campbell, however, if she had really decided to leave him because she was tied down and didn't want to be with him then why does her resentment carry on into her poetry?
Why didn't her marriages last?
Adcock's second marriage to Barry Crump lasted only 5 months. She describes her decision to marry Crump as showing "all the foresight and prudence of a lemming." The marriage was doomed from the start with Crump being well-known in New Zealand for writing adventure stories such as 'A good Keen Man'. Adcock later describes Crump as a male chauvinist pig who was also abusive: "Manly men. They're fine in the pub telling jokes and stories, but in an argument they're not so good at the old logic, so that's when they smack you across the mouth." The marriage soon broke up and Crump was kind enough to pay her passage to England as her divorce settlement.
Post a Comment