John Kinsella - Temporariness

John Kinsella / Russell West-Pavlov

Temporariness

On the Imperatives of Place

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag Tübingen

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© 2019 • Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG

Dischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen

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ISBN 978-3-8233-8174-7 (Print)

ISBN 978-3-8233-0103-5 (ePub)

John:

I wish to thank Curtin University, where I am Professor of Literature and Environment, for a Curtin Research Fellowship which has supported my participation in the writing of this book, and assisted me financially in the visits to Tübingen which have facilitated the dialogue between myself and Russell West-Pavlov. I also wish to thank the Curtin University School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry for a financial contribution to the publication. And much thanks to the ‘Literary Cultures of the Global South’ project at Tübingen University for supporting my visits to Tübingen, and all those connected with the project.

Special thanks to Tracy Ryan for her ongoing support, and also to our son Tim.

Some of my pieces have appeared on the blog I share with Tracy Ryan, Mutually Said: Poets Vegan Anarchist Pacifist and Feminist . And acknowledgement to the following occasions where sections of this book were given as papers: Australian Academy of the Humanities’ 48th Annual Symposium, Humanitarianism and Human Rights , the Perth Literary Youth Festival: Eco-Futures , and Sydney Ideas (at the University of Sydney). Also acknowledgement for first publication of some of my pieces to the journals: Angelaki , Cordite , Poetry Wales , Vallum Magazine and Rabbit . And special thanks to Andrée Gerland for the event we did together in Tübingen: Hälfte des Lebens at the Hölderlin-Gesellschaft in 2017.

And many thanks to Alexandra Leonzini for her copy-edit (not easy working with such a conversational and free-ranging text!), and also Sara Azarmi for replacing my lower-cases with capitals in the ‘Monologues’ for the book-version of the manuscript.

Permission to reproduce images of her artwork was given by Filomena Coppola; many thanks! Thanks to University of Queensland Press and The Estate of Michael Dransfield for permission to use an excerpt from ‘Geography’. Premission to use an excerpt from Kim Scott’s ‘Kaya’ was kindly granted by Fremantle Press. Picador Australia gave permission to reproduce my poems ‛Wagenburg’ and ‛Tübingen Peace Oak’. “Of Being Numerous” by George Oppen, from New Collected Poems, copyright ©1968 by George Oppen. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishung Corp.

Oh, and apologies to those who don’t subscribe to an ‘open’ conversational and divergent style: the rhizomes, roots, and trails through the textual scrub are an essential part of what this book is trying to be, and a result of what it is trying to resist. It is, to my mind, a living and activist text, and a text of dialogue, conversation and interaction—all conducted with due respect, I hope.

Russ:

I would like to thank Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Sara Azarmi, Alexandra Leonzini and Matthias Schmerold for assistance with the textual technology.

Thanks also to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) which funded, within the framework of the Thematic Network Project ‘Literary Cultures of the Global South’, several of John’s stays in Tübingen, thereby making the dialogue possible in its earliest stages, as well as assisting in the costs of the publication.

A word of thanks is due also to Stephen Muecke, whose fictocritical writing has been a source of inspiration and a model since the day, shortly before my leaving the country behind, I discovered Reading the Country in the National Gallery of Victoria—and for friendship and advice dating from Stephen’s incumbency of the Hirschfeld-Mack Chair in Berlin in 2008-9. In a not dissimilar manner, the ‘episodic’ writing of my friend and colleague David Medalie has informed the structure of this book. Again, I’d like to acknowledge my debt of formal inspiration to his writing. Thanks are also due to Michael Titlestad for giving permission to reproduce extracts of an article on Medalie's work that originally appeared in English Studies in Africa 58:1 (June 2015). Permission to quote Michael Hamburger's translation of Hölderlin's “Patmos” (from Poems and Fragments , 2004) was kindly given by Carcanet Press. Angus and Robertson gave permission to quote from A. D. Hope’s poem ‛Australia’. Curtis Brown gave permission to quote from W.H. Auden’s poem ‛In memory of W. B. Yeats’.

Thanks to Joshua, Iva and Niklas for getting on their bikes and helping with the concretions at the Neckarinsel, the Brechtbau and the Burgholz.

And of course, thanks to Tatjana for lovingly sharing—indeed making possible—talks, walks, thoughts, and many other shared experienced that were, from the outset, ‘about time’.

John and Russ:

Both of us would like to thank Philip Mead for his steadfast friendship and mentorship over the years, and, in a sense, for getting the ball rolling. This dialogue, and this book, would never have happened without him. Thanks to Alexandra Leonzini, Joseph Steinberg and Anya Heise-von der Lippe for their assistance with the production of the text.

We would like to thank the anonymous external reader for valuable feedback.

And we would both like to thank Andrée Gerland for his friendship and humour, and for his sense of what poetry and the Global South are all about.

Image credits

Page 12: Steel Matting, Wankheimer Täle © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 22: Cartridge, Wankheimer Täle © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 30: Ant Concretion © John Kinsella

Page 36: Ant Concretion © John Kinsella

Page 40: Dozer Concretion © John Kinsella

Page 50: Erdrutsch Sign, Schönbuch near Bebenhausen © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 68: Herbst Concretion with Ripples, Neckar opposite Hölderlinturm, Tübingen, Text © John Kinsella, Image © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 74: Ant Concretion © John Kinsella

Page 76: Proximity poem © John Kinsella

Page 86: Diagram © John Kinsella

Page 94: Blaulach Ice, Tübingen © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 106: Ruin, Wankheimer Täle © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 114: Window and Shadow, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 166: Botanical Gardens © Filomena Coppola

Page 170: Pebble © Filomena Coppola

Page 178: Unexploded munitions sign, Wankheimer Täle © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 184: Military Training Area sign, Wankheimer Täle © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 186: Mirage F1, University of Pretoria © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 200: Eucalyptus, Mirranatwa, Victoria Valley, Grampians/Gariwerd © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 202: Omiš and Cetina River © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 208: Zlatna vrata, Split © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 210: Zlatna vrata, Split © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 214: Split main station © Russell West-Pavlov

Page 218: Brechtbau Concretion, Text © John Kinsella, Image © Russell West-Pavlov