ChicagoPostmodernPoetry.Com
Poetic Profile
Allison Coggon
General Questions
1. Where did you grow up? Was poetry and writing part of that mix?
I grew up mainly in the Western District of Victoria, Australia, near a regional town called Ballarat. I was actually born in South Africa - my father was a miner, as a good Cornishman, and worked on a goldmine there. We moved to England when I was four, and then out here to the kaolin clay pits near Ballarat when I was seven. I lived with my sisters in somewhat Brontesque isolation. I wanted to be a poet very early. I still have no idea why, though this is very common with poets.
We always had books in the house, and my father often quoted Romantic poets in the shower. I guess I was surrounded by the usual English bourgeois books, which was coupled with a concomitant suspicion of anyone who actually pursued the art. My father was horrified by my ambition to be a writer and insisted I get a day job, which is why I became a journalist.
2. Who are your poetic influences, favorite poets, writers, artwork, other things that inform your work?
Whew, that's a hard one to answer... I guess really important early influences are Blake and Eliot and whole English Romantic tradition, and later I read a lot of poetry in translation. I'm very fond of 20C poets, like David Jones, Rilke, Blaise Cendrars, HD, Muriel Rukeyser, Brecht. Contemporary poets I admire are legion, although on the whole I tend to admire and do otherwise.
Theatre as an art form has been very important to me, in illuminating the nature of speech and the temporality and contingency of art.
3. When did you ‘become’ a poet? When did poetry become part of your everyday life?
I can't remember. I just always wanted to write poems.
4. Where were you educated? Was this important?
I went to school in Ballarat. Then I joined the hurly burly world of newspaper journalism. I worked for an afternoon daily newspaper (these things no longer exist) in Melbourne. I guess that was my education, and so was important, though for a long time I thought it was merely a negative education which taught me what I didn't want to do.
5. English is viewed by many in the world as an Imperial Language, first with the British and now the Americans do you think that English is oppressive in its use? Especially for Australians, Indians, Canadians who are not part of this Imperial mentality?
I think English certainly can be oppressive. It's like a weed, strangling other languages. Us colonized types (Australian, Indians, Canadians &c) are certainly part of the Imperial mentality; we just have another take on it.
5.1. American poets are bound by their history, how are Australians bound by theirs?
Australians have a very uncomfortable relationship with their history, which is rather bloody and often inglorious. The most common reaction is therefore to ignore it.
6. What is the state of poetry in Australia? Is it in dialogue with Asia? or Britain? or other places?
Whenever I'm overseas, I look back at Australia and think: How exciting! How wonderful to be an Australian poet! Whenever I'm here, I feel less sanguine. But I think the former perception is the truest: it's a very good time to be writing poetry in Australia, and there are many very interesting poets writing here, particularly women. Australians feel free to be eclectic, to take influences from wherever they like. They don't feel bound by any tradition. This can have its drawbacks, but it also gives us a lot of freedom.
7) What is your favorite food?
Japanese
8) Sports team or Activity?
I don't do sport.
9) Vacation spot.
Or holidays. (I'm waiting for when I'm rich)
10) Curse word.
Fuck. It can mean almost anything.
Craft Questions
1) How do you form a poem? Is poetry an organic or synthetic process for you?
Both, I think. If a poem chooses to arrive, I try to just let it, and then I get the scissors out. Writing a poem always seems to me a matter of achieving access to some part of my brain that usually hides itself from me. Sometimes I can get there, sometimes I can't. That's the mysterious bit.
The rest is technique.
2. Where do you write? Is ambience important? Do you have rituals or habits when you write?
I write at my desk, in whatever chaos happens to surround me. My family is robustly disrespectful of writing (my husband is a writer, my kids are used to it) so rituals are out. My usual habit is to go deaf, which annoys everyone except me.
3. In the balance between found language and created language where does you work fall?
I'm not sure what you mean by "created language"... I guess I think of writing as making new things with found materials. If in this way you make something new, well and good, though I'm not sure that I've ever done that. On the scale of experimentation I'd say I'm fairly conservative in my practice.
Links
Allison's books are available from
And through amazon.co.uk
Her websites are:
Home page: Allison Croggon
