A Poetics of Place: The Poetry of Ralph Gustafson

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Thus, Aristotle’s statement in the Poetics that dance is rhythmic movement whose purpose is “to represent men’s characters as well as what they do and suffer” refers to the central role that dance played in classical Greek theatre, where the chorus through its movements reenacted the themes of the drama… Read More Neither Tintern Abbey nor the River Wye is mentioned except in the poem’s title, yet Wordsworth’s descriptions of “steep and lofty cliffs,” “plots of cottage ground,” “hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines/ of sportive wood run wild,” and “pastoral farms,” evoke the specific character of the Wye valley and make it recognizable even to those who may not be familiar with it. This poem, like many poems of place, is in other words, communicates intersubjectively; it is simultaneously about somewhere particular and has a widely shared resonance. Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place accessed at http://www.hevanet.com/windfall/poetryofplace.html bell hooks, a well-known poet and writer who grew up in a remote area of Appalachia about which she has written several books, says simply that her identity is firmly rooted in a place that is no longer whole. Poets of place, at least those who combine careful observation with imaginative insights, do not merely celebrate place. They recognize that all places offer comforts and challenges and that these are constantly shifting. on a misunderstanding of Aristotle’s Poetics, in which the philosopher attempted to give a critical definition of the nature of tragedy. The new theory was first put into dramatic practice in Jean Mairet’s Sophonisbe (1634), a tragedy that enjoyed considerable success. Corneille, not directly involved in the call for regular… Read More

Digswell Arts Fellows Dave Nelson and Kirke Raava are taking part in the group exhibition Poetics of Place. This exhibition focuses on how place shapes our memories, thoughts, and dreams through our perception. As part of the Hertfordshire Year of Culture, this group exhibition focuses on works by six artists living and working in Hertfordshire. With varying visual languages, artists Fiona Curran, Yva Jung, Dave Nelson, Kirke Raava, Amanda Ralph and Imogen Welch all share an inherent interest in the process of moulding and re-shaping experiences of memory or place. Consisting of assemblages, textile works, painting, photography and installation, the exhibition showcases layered, meticulously constructed works that consider the undercurrents of value systems, social histories and image-making. Imogen Welch’s practice is concerned with recycling, re-presentation and transformation, often with autobiographical elements. By incorporating techniques more commonly found in craft, such as collage, frottage, mosaic, casting, and upholstery, her practice also references 'women's work' and folk art. Perception of placehood is subject to the changeability of the moon in A Sleepwalk on the Severn; my critical analysis of human encounters as ecopoetic extensions to sensory exploration finds them inescapably tinged by moonlit flux. Oswald’s Anthropocene lyric navigates a perilinguistic channel that interconnects human and non-human affect. I argue that her mapping of the movement of emotions across people, planet and place is a mode of signifying the ways that subjectivity and environment call into being our enworldedness. KeywordsKirk-Rudeen, Shelley, 2006 “Zumwalt Prairie” in Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place accessed at http://www.hevanet.com/windfall/poetryofplace.html His Poetics (the surviving fragment of which is limited to an analysis of tragedy and epic poetry) has sometimes been dismissed as a recipe book for the writing of potboilers. Certainly, Aristotle is primarily interested in the theoretical construction of tragedy, much as an architect might… Read More Bachelard applies the method of phenomenology to architecture, basing his analysis not on purported origins (as was the trend in Enlightenment thinking about architecture) but on lived experience in architectural places and their contexts in nature. He focuses especially on the personal, emotional response to buildings both in life and in literary works, both in prose and in poetry. He is thus led to consider spatial types such as the attic, the cellar, drawers and the like. Bachelard implicitly urges architects to base their work on the experiences it will engender rather than on abstract rationales that may or may not affect viewers and users of architecture. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.

After graduating from Coventry Polytechnic with BA(Hons) in Fine Art in 1991, Amanda Ralph was an active member of the Arena Studios, and exhibited widely across UK and internationally including The Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, where she exhibited alongside Doris Salcedo – one of her inspirations. 20 years later, after taking a career break to raise her family, and diversifying her skills as a stylist and interior designer, Ralph has returned to art and is currently studying her final year of MA Fine Art at the University of Hertfordshire. These new objets d’art, vaguely familiar and recognisable at first glance, are displayed within a gallery environment, removing them from their humble domestic beginnings and practical motivations into reworked delicate small-scale contemporary textile sculptures. Reading Time: 3 minutes A celebration of how poets distill their experience of country and culture into their work. Elizabeth Rainsford-McMahon: The Crafting of ‘Still-Points’ in Thomas Merton’s Journalistic Writing Stay at home. It is the message we have heard countless times during this unprecedented period. Home has always been the foundation to our daily lives but suddenly its importance has amplified. We have perhaps never been more in tune with our senses of place than now, in this current environment.Paul Murray: “Irish Protestant Literary Perspectives on Catholic Liturgy: Ethel Voynich's 'The Gadfly' (1897) and Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' (1897)” Lexi Eikelboom: Art-Making as Spiritual Place-Making: A Search for Parallels between Art and Liturgy