Becoming Semi-devotional: Creating a Melbourne Beach Poetics

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Michael Farrell

Abstract

Dogs may well set up a sort of barking at the very idea of a Melbourne beach poetics. Others, sceptical of the use of the term poetics as a means of zhoozhing or shoring up the aesthetics of an inadequate theme, may growl. And what of easy identifications of nature with forms of art? Are they just another form of greenwashing? Can Melbourne beachness be defined only in terms of lack? And what does this beachness mean when the ideal is defined by Fiske, Hodge and Turner in negative terms: ‘no houses, no tents, no sandmining, no road and no way in except in bare feet’?

Article Details

Section
New Writing (Peer Reviewed)
Author Biography

Michael Farrell, Deakin University

MICHAEL FARRELL is researching improvised icons and Australian culture at Deakin University. He has published one book of poetry: ode ode.