Three-Dimensional Poetic Nature: Dissertation andCreative Works (DVD)

Abstract

This thesis and accompanying creative product explore poetry as a multi-dimensional expression that is intrinsically inter-disciplinary. Poetry written for and practiced in media other than the page is surprisingly under-investigated. Such poetry has had difficulty establishing ‘legitimacy’ and currency in the world of practice, as traditional poetry spaces are rarely equipped, in terms of audience readiness or technological capacities, to appreciate such work. For the purposes of this investigation, the term ‘Three-Dimensional Poetic Natures’ refers specifically to poetry beyond the page, particularly in relation to performance poetry; not the imaginative landscapes created by poetic texts. Research undertaken during the course of this PhD investigated the spatial and embodied aspects of poetry beyond the page and its relationship with space, time and ecology, through creative and discursive exchanges. I use the word ‘ecological’ throughout the thesis to represent poetry and its performance as profoundly interconnected with culture, people and the environment. The word ‘ecological’ enables me to discuss poetry as a living organism in exchange with the world. ‘Ecological’ or ‘ecology’ are not used to imply eco-friendly or environmentally sustainable. The exchange that takes place in relation to animals within this dissertation and creative product also stems from the idea of ecology as a site of living and vibrant exchanges. Poetics that emerge from ecological thinking represent more than ideas, they also consider spatiality, acoustics, environments, subjectivities and texts. The poems infusing my research are technologically enabled and dependent. H2O, Liquid Stanzas and Dive, the three creative products developed during the course of this research, represent forms of ecological poetry concerned with the marine environment. As water and its inhabitants, processes and spaces are the creative focus of this investigation, I have oriented the dissertation towards an engagement with water. Performance is integral to all of the creative works; as an enactment of subjectivity and as a way of expressing voice, presence, spacetime and text (in its broadest sense).

The experience of composing H2O, Liquid Stanzas and Dive helped me witness the three-dimensional nature of poetry as it mutates conventional poetic form and migrates across ecological boundaries. I chose water in order to concentrate investigations into an ecological poetics on one environment; an environment with deeply personal resonances.