Symposium: Writing The Stain of Blood: A Symposium on Poetry and History
Writing 'The Stain of Blood': A Symposium on Poetry and History
Symposium: Writing The Stain of Blood: A Symposium on Poetry and History
Date: 4–5 December 2015 Time: 9.00 amWriting 'The Stain of Blood': A Symposium on Poetry and History will be held at Victoria University of Wellington on 4–5 December 2015.
"Poetry and history, poetry and society, poetry and politics: for some of us, these phrases pair virtual antonyms” – Clare Cavanagh, “Poetry and History: Poland's Acknowledged Legislators"
"Once one divides the world into history and poetry, then one obliterates the difference between a history…which is habitable and human, and the kind which produces concentration camps" – Adam Zagajewski, Two Cities: On Exile, History and the Imagination
"Poetry is a more philosophical and better thing than history, since poetry states more universal things whereas history states particular things" – Aristotle, Poetics
Does poetry 'make nothing happen'? What has it done historically and what can it still do? Does poetry embody the histories of different peoples or is it symptomatic of communal experience? Can it contest dominant narratives, poetic and otherwise? How can it reconstruct lost histories? What are the responsibilities to the facts, or in respect of the ownership of the stories? What forms and structures have been used by poets of history, and what do they bring to the telling of history? What subjects do historical poems explore and why? Who are the poets writing history, and what histories are they telling? Is the most powerful contemporary poetry largely invisible within the academy, making history elsewhere?
This two-day symposium at Victoria University of Wellington will explore questions such as these through academic papers, panel discussions and poetry readings. Proposals for papers and panel discussions addressing the relation between history and poetry should be sent to Anna Jackson, at anna.jackson@vuw.ac.nz, before 6 November 2015. Earlier proposals or expressions of interest are very welcome. Late proposals will probably still be considered.
Anna Jackson teaches in the English Programme at Victoria University of Wellington.