and
Specula:
Mirrors from the Middle Ages
By Alison Croggon
In this issue, we have a special feature of the work of Alison Croggon, the Australian writer. Specula is a new series of poems which she recently performed at subvoicive and Specula: Mirrors from the Middle Ages is an accompanying essay which she presented at Birkbeck College while on tour in the United Kingdom. For her discussion on these works, see her interview in this same issue.
Born in 1962, Alison Croggon is one of a new generation of Australian poets which emerged in the 1990s. She writes in many genres, including criticism, theatre and prose. Her poetry has been published widely in anthologies and magazines in Australia and overseas. Her first book of poems, This is the Stone, won the 1991 Anne Elder and Dame Mary Gilmore Prizes. Her novel Navigatio, published by Black Pepper Press, was highly commended in the 1995 Australian/Vogel literary awards and is being translated for publication in France. Her second book of poems, The Blue Gate, was released in 1997 and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Poetry Prize.
The poem Mnemosyne, was published as a chapbook by Wild Honey Press in December 2001. A book of poetry, Divinations, will be published by Arc Books in the UK next year, and Salt Publishing released a new collection of poems and other writing, Attempts at Being in early 2002. Both books are available online from their publishers.
October 2002 also sees the publication of Alison’s first fantasy novel for young adults, The Gift, the first installment of an epic trilogy. Alison has to date written and had performed nine works for theatre. Her theatre work includes the operas Gauguin (Melbourne Festival 2000) and The Burrow(Perth Festival, Sydney, Melbourne 1994-95 and broadcast by ABC Radio), both with Michael Smetanin, and the plays Lenz (Melbourne Festival 1996), Samarkand and The Famine (Rules of Thumb season, Red Shed Company, Adelaide 1997 and ABC Radio 1998). Her play Blue was presented at La Mama in Melbourne and the Street Theatre in Canberra in June 2001 by CIA.The text Monologues for an Apocalypse was commissioned for ABC Radio National and broadcast in 2001.She also wrote lyrics for Confidentially Yours (Playbox Theatre 1998, Hong Kong Festival 1999).
Many of her poems have been set to music by various composers, including Smetanin (Skinless Kiss of Angels, Elision New Music Emsemble), Christine McCombe and Margaret Legge-Wilkinson (Canberra New Music Ensemble) and most recently Andreé Greenwell, with whom she is working on two collaborations. With Michael Smetanin, she has most recently completed a music theatre project,The White Army and they are now planning their third opera. She has also performed her work with saxophonist/composer Tim O’Dwyer.
She was the 2000 Australia Council writer in
residence at Cambridge University, UK. She was
poetry editor for Overland Extra (1992), Modern
Writing (1992-1994) and Voices (1996) and
founding editor of the literary arts journal
Masthead, featured in Winter 2001 and online at http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/index.html
