Overview

Or- An Autobiography explores in poetry fluidities of self, body and imagination. Or- An Autobiography explores fluidities of self, body and imagination. Its central book-length poem 'The Or Tree' is an alternative version of the fictional poem, 'The Oak Tree', which was written by Virginia Woolf's character Orlando (who in turn was a fictional rendition of Vita Sackville-West). 'The Oak Tree' takes Orlando over 300 years to write, in which time they live through multiple eras, burn their poetic oeuvre, have various affairs with poets and critics, a queen, and change gender from male to female. 'The Or Tree' is an assemblage and erasure poem, resurrected chronologically from the six chapters of a burnt copy of Orlando- A Biography. It is an homage to androgyny and the non-binary, or rather, an expression of the fluidity we are all capable of. 'Or' is an alter ego and character in the poem (pronouns they/them), as well as a conjunction, and a ghost. 'The Or Tree' is complemented by an ""understorey"", a poetic essay that underscores and intertwines with the poem across each chapter in a radical play on the confessional and citational.

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9781764239707

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Toby Fitch is a leading Australian poet, editor, critic and teacher. He is the current poetry editor of Overland, Australia's premier journal of radical politics. His poetry has won or been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Charles Rischbieth Jury Prize, the Peter Porter Poetry Prize, the Newcastle Poetry Prize and the Gwen Harwood Prize. His books of poetry include Rawshock, which won the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry 2012, The Bloomin' Notions of Other & Beau, Where Only the Sky had Hung Before, and, most recently, Sydney Spleen (Giramondo Publishing, 2021) and Object Permanence- Calligrammes (Puncher & Wattmann / Thorny Devil Press, 2022). He co-edited Best of Australian Poems 2021 with Ellen van Neerven.

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