Cassandra Atherton

Cassandra Atherton
Atherton in Tokyo, 2016
Born	Rose Park, Adelaide
Nationality	Australian
Education	University of Melbourne
Known for	Prose-poetry

Cassandra Atherton, an Australian prose-poet, critic and scholar, is an expert on contemporary public intellectuals.^[1] She is married to the American historian Glenn Moore and currently lives in Massachusetts.

Academic and literary work

She was Harvard Visiting Scholar in English in 2015–16, sponsored by Stephen Greenblatt, a visiting fellow at the Institute of Comparative Culture at Sophia University, Tokyo, in 2014, and an affiliate of the Japan Studies Centre at Monash University in 2015.^[1] She was an editorial advisor for Australian Book Review in 2012–15 and is currently Poetry Editor of Westerly Magazine.^[2]

Her prose-poetry has been anthologised in The Best Australian Poems (2012, 2013, 2014, 2015) and the Hunter Anthology of Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry (2016), and published in international journals, including New Orleans Review,^[3] and Stoneboat Literary Journal, Wisconsin.^[4] She is currently a senior lecturer at Deakin University and received the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for University Teacher of the Year in 2011. She is also the Head of Honours and Masters of Arts in Writing and Literature there.^[5]

Themes

Atherton’s prose poetry explores the reanimation of canonical texts against a backdrop of popular culture references. She appeals to humour noir and the politicisation of the poet’s private spaces. Geoff Page writes: "Though many of the poems are anecdotal they also advance by sound associations and other aleatory devices. They tend to be seriously playful with a bent towards the satirical, even the self-mocking."^[6]

Critical response

Atherton is praised for her prose poetry, and is likened to masters of the form. Michael Farrell writes: "Cassandra Atherton’s nervy style is distinct from an earlier generation of prose poets (Joanne Burns, Gary Catalano, Ania Walwicz); it feels both post-punk and post-John Forbes."^[8] While others, such as Chloe Wilson, have praised her for exploring the fundamental question of any poet. Wilson writes: "They are works in which the speaker, moving back and forth between text and experience, continually asks an unanswerable question: ‘How do I write the space between my heart and my pen?'"^[9] While Atherton's prose poetry is informed by previous poets and investigates the anxiety of the artist, Ivy Ireland has observed dark humour in her collection of prose poetry, Exhumed: "Dazzling, vibrant and terribly witty, ... Exhumed does not give itself over entirely to the horribly serious, gruesome images invoked by its title."^[10] Australian writer Kerryn Goldsworthy notes in a critique of Atherton's Trace (2015) that "The dense, intense prose is often funny, and incorporates all kinds of cultural allusions."^[11]

Selected works

Atherton has published numerous critical and creative books, including:

Critical works

• Flashing Eyes and Floating Hair: A Reading of Gwen Harwood's Pseudonymous Poetry (2007). ISBN 1740971299.
• Travelling Without Gods: A Chris Wallace-Crabbe Companion, Cassandra Atherton (ed.) (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2014) ISBN 9780522864519.
• In So Many Words: Interviews with Writers, Scholars and Intellectuals (interviews with American intellectuals: Harold Bloom, Noam Chomsky, Stephen Greenblatt, Camille Paglia, Howard Zinn, et al.) (Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2013) ISBN 9781925003062.

Novel

• The Man Jar (Printed Matter Press, Tokyo, 2010).

Prose-poetry

• Sketch-Notes Vol. (1, 2 & 3) (Mountains Brown Press, Victoria, 2015) with Phil Day (artist), artist's book.
• Exhumed (Grand Parate Poets, New South Wales, 2015) ISBN 9780987129192.
• Trace (Finlay Lloyd, New South Wales, 2015) illustrated by Phil Day (artist) ISBN 9780987592996.
• Pegs (International Poetry Studies Institute: Authorised Theft, Canberra, 2015).
• After Lolita (Ahadada Books, Ontario, 2010).

Atherton has edited/curated numerous journals, including: Cordite Poetry Review, (with Paul Hetherington) (2016);^[12] Rabbit: A Journal of Nonfiction Poetry,(with Paul Hetherington) (2016);^[13] Contemporary Women’s Writing, (with Jessica Wilkinson) (2016);^[14] Media International Australia, (with David Marshall) (2015).^[15]

Collaboration

Atherton most often collaborates with artist and writer Phil Day and scholar and poet, Paul Hetherington. She is currently engaged in collaborating on Sketch Notes 4 and 5 with Day and a series of artist's books with both Hetherington and Day.

She was awarded a VicArts Grant^[16] to collaborate on writing a prose poetry graphic novel with Day and scholar/poet Alyson Miller, titled Pikadon: Post-Atomic Alice.

References