Listening Harder: Reticulating Poetic Tradition in Michele Leggott's 'Blue Irises'

Although Michele Leggott's third collection of poems, DIA (1994), won the New Zealand Book Award for poetry, it did not always fare so well with reviewers, especially those reluctant to accept its fragmented quotational strategies. Not unlike early responses to T. S. Eliot's 'The Wast...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of New Zealand literature Vol. 33; no. 33; pp. 110 - 127
Main Author Newman, Janet
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Wellington, NZ English Programme, School of Arts, University of Waikato 01.01.2015
Victoria University of Wellington
Subjects
Anthologies
Appreciation
Archives
Conduct of life
Essays
Leggott, Michele
Leggott, Michele J
Literary criticism
Love poetry
Modernist art
Modernist poetry
New Zealand poetry
Poetic themes
Poetry
Poets
Sonnets
Women
Women poets
Works
Writers
New Zealand
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Summary:Although Michele Leggott's third collection of poems, DIA (1994), won the New Zealand Book Award for poetry, it did not always fare so well with reviewers, especially those reluctant to accept its fragmented quotational strategies. Not unlike early responses to T. S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' (1922), which 'provoked charges of intentional obscurity' because of its 'highly allusive character', some critics baulked at Leggott's 'appropriation' of words, phrases and lines from earlier poets. Iain Sharp described her method as 'filching lines'; Jane Stafford also took issue with Leggott's 'willful obscurity'. Bill Direen, however, wondered, 'if in fact one might be witnessing the rebirth of New Zealand poetry'.
Bibliography:Journal of New Zealand Literature, Vol. 33, 2015, 110-127
Informit, Melbourne (Vic)
Includes notes
ISSN:0112-1227