Axon: Creative Explorations, Vol 3, No 1, March 2013
Ambiguity is expressed in all sorts of domains and in all sorts of ways and this issue of Axon explores a variety of such ambiguities. Maria Papas connects Freud's concept of heimlich to the relationship between grief and personal expression; and Josephine Taylor focuses on vulvodynia, pain and the 'ambiguous between'. Rachel Robertson links ambiguous loss and creativity while Dominique Hecq employs Lacanian ideas to probe connections between madness and creativity, also problematising the concept of suppléance. Nigel Mcloughlin investigates how the creative process generates new knowledges within the discipline of creative writing, and the implications of this. Dan Disney discusses the translation of poetry and a 'poetics of versioneering', while Jessica Wilkinson's analysis of Susan Howe's 'visual and verbal play' as a poet connects her work to history and marginalised subjects. Page Richards' discussion of Rita Dove's work focuses on anonymity and marginality, life writing and biography. Paul Hetherington interviews poet and novelist Judy Johnson about her creative practice and its connection to her personal experience. Elizabeth Alberts interviews the writers Helen Frost, Steven Herrick and Ronald Koertge about the ambiguous form of the verse novel. Desmond Barry writes about cooperative creativity, chance and the multi-platform novel, Far south. Benjamin Ball considers a broad reconceptualisation of long-form journalism that encompasses 'a broader, moral category of communication'. There are poems by Petra White, Dennis Haskell, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Philip Neilsen, Page Richards, John Kinsella, Seamus Cashman, Owen Bullock, Adrian Caesar, Cath Drake and Richard Allen. Adrian Miles contributes Quickened, a lyrical iBook for postindustrial doing, along with a short, poetic essay on this project and Brendan Murphy's photographic portfolio explores conceptualisations of damage.
Consultant Editor for this issue: Dr Rachel Robertson