faculty focus
campusreview.com.au
Rhyme with reason
There is still a place for
poetry in commerce, culture
and everyday life.
Daniel Hourigan interviewed
by Richard Garfield
W
hen was the last time you read
a poem?
For many of us not currently
involved in the teaching, study or creation
of literature, our answer might well be
when we were finishing school, or during
our undergrad days at university. But that
might not actually be the case.
It can be argued poetry influences many
facets of our lives. From song lyrics, to
jingles, contemporary music and even
corporate branding, the foundations
of poetry are present in ways we often
wouldn’t be aware of. Far from being
hidden away in long forgotten textbooks,
poetry in its many forms is now more
accessible than ever thanks to the web and
social media channels.
22
To coincide with UNESCO’s World
Poetry Day in March, we caught up with
Dr Daniel Hourigan, lecturer in English
literature in the School of Humanities
and Communication at the University of
Southern Queensland, and one of the
judges of the annual Bruce Dawe National
Poetry Prize, to get his thoughts on the
place of poetry in the 21st century.
CR: Many people might think of poetry as an
archaic literary form from the distant past.
What do you think poetry can offer us in
contemporary society?
DH: Poetry is a mainstay of oral traditions.
Yet today, in Western nations, we usually
think of it as a work of written literature that
uses the aesthetic and rhythmic qualities
of language such as sound symbolism and
meter to evoke meanings in addition to,
or in substitution for, ordinary meaning.
Poetry has been around for a long time,
certainly, but it remains at the core of
so many of our everyday experiences in
modern Australia, from the song lyric to
the advertising jingle or company motto.
Poetry has a power to present an image or
experience in an intense way that few other
modes of communication can.
Higher education institutions are becoming
increasingly focused on teaching practical,
vocational skills to produce job-ready
graduates. Where would you say the
teaching and practice of poetry fit in
with this?
I would like to counter the presumption
that poetry is somehow impractical. It is
important to remember that poetry often
relies on the spoken word rather than the
read text, and a significant part of poetry
is its performance, both verbally and on
the page.
To put this another way, reading poetry
requires that we think of reading as an
active rather than passive engagement
with our imagination. Moreover, we tend
to miss the point of poetry if we think of
literature such as poetry as something
that Someone A does to Someone B.
The act of reading is just that: an act
that we enact. While the Oxford English
Dictionary defines poetry as a written
literature, I’m of the mind that this is too
narrow a definition for poetry because its
performative basis is not easily reduced to
one among many literatures.
What are your thoughts on the state of
contemporary poetry in Australia, and how
does it compare with what’s happening
overseas?
The contemporary poetry scene in Australia
is very active and exciting. Almost every
national or state-based literary award
houses a category for poetry, which goes a
long way to recognising that it has a place
in the Australian national imagination.