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Anastasia (Anne) Louridas

MARTIN HARRISON - in the course of our lectures Harrison claimed; "You have no choice but to live in

your time". What does he mean by this, and how does it influence his poetry?

Martin Harrison′s anthology of lyric poetry

Summer

and the verse prose

Music

lucidly articulates the disposition of

the postmodern poet having no choice but to write in the time in which they are living. His poetry of verse and

experimental prose lucidly articulates the angst and dilemmas of living and narrating in the ambiguous epoch of

Postmodernity. Paul Cheselka had once commented on the prolific poet Borges:

In Borges′ poetic cosmovision the most important symbol is time; it is a representation of man and his human

condition. Like time, men are in a constant state of flux; they are both forever different and always essentially the

same.

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This is immensely obvious in Harrison′s anthology of poetry which mesmerizes the reader through his encapsulating

imagery, juxtapositioning of unlikely entities, and experimentation and representation of man in his time. Specifically,

Harrison focusses on infinitesimal moments and the ramifications which unfold in a ripple- like effect to convey an

ontological appreciation of poetry and poetics which are a product of their respective culture, an aesthetic and

evocative pastiche of the time they are written. We notice a disparaging discomfort within these poems, perhaps a

semblance of Postmodern disharmony and anxiety infused with the overwhelming nuances of hybridity, which seems

to be attributed to the element of time and its influences on the contemporaneous individual, and poetic artist.

Harrison, having no choice but to write of the vices and concerns of his time, instigates a melancholic tone, and an

overwhelming mood of low modality with an omnipresent yearning for comprehension of what could be definitive of

the Postmodern hybrid personage. This examination of human cynicism, and the search for self hood may be

attributed to the uncertainties that govern Australian, and Western society of Post- September 11, and the

continuance of the Iraqi War. However, in light of this, Harrison is able to induce his concerns with honest self

reflection and careful selection of contrary images. To quote Robert Scholes in his descriptions and prescriptions of

the universal poet and his art:

`

...a true poem turns on some additional neural circuitry which enables him to produce these high powered verbal

objects called poems. The result, in Saussurean terms, is that the poet′s utterance (parole) comes from a different

sign-system (langue) than employed by an ordinary speaker′. (Structuralism in Literature, pg. 29)

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This is ever so true of Harrison′s poems which comprise of antithetical objects to produce extensive insight to

postmodern preoccupations.

Harrison illustrates the frustrations of attempting to live and write in his time by undertaking a Neo Formalist approach

in his writing. In his lecture, Harrison exclaimed the activeness of writing, the disposition of languages took

precedence to philosophical suppositions. Perhaps this explains his preoccupation with illustrating, `describing and

prescribing′ (his words) `made spaces′, rather than provoking resolutions. This is evident in the stream of style that

runs through most of his anthologies. Most of his poems are presented in a uniform style as they adhere to a

consistent structure and metre. Distinctively, his form appears to be a response to shifting cultural paradigms, events

and inadequacies which problematise the epoch of postmodernity.3 Living in a culture of "Post" and "meta" which

proposes its own set of anti-establishmentarian concerns, and not because the world at large has become rebellious,

but rather due to a decomposition of establishment, a dismantling of hierarchy and a suspended belief in a unity with

an epicenter. Globalisation, internationalism and hybrid identities, seem to be definitive of the 21st century mindset.

Harrison is drawn to literalising the complexity of the contemporary temporal state by focusing on infinitesimal

moments in ones daily life. In his fist poem

Summer

from his anthology of the same title, Harrison engages in

extracting meaning, exploring the words which prescribe the priori and meta 4, and articulating the concise words and

sounds which may define the lonely tourist′s existence, who like the poet, is engulfed by the anxieties of living and

attaining meager comprehensions. From this perspective, the global, cosmopolitan individual en mass, is this lonely

and overwhelmed tourist. Seeking a home, a comfort zone, a loci of emancipation, only to be suppressed by `artifice′

and lacking any understanding. This is eloquently established through intertextuality, in the universal persona of

`Odysseus′, whose epic journey had once conjured reverent findings according to the Aristotelian model of peripeteia

and anagnorisis. In contrast, the postmodern hybrid `tourist′ merely confronts a `swimming pool′, disappointingly

definitive of modern constructs. One may consider the metonymic disposition of the swimming pool, as a substitute

body of water. Unlike its natural counterpart, the ocean, this man made construct provides some superficial comfort

in its `coolness′. Intriguingly, Harrison′s inevitability of writing in his time is most evident here, particularly since the

persona is apparently distressed by the lack of familiar.

Additionally, the repetition of the word `coolness′ structures the poem. The constructed swimming pool seems a

surrogate for the postmodern persona′s dilemma of seeking answers in an epiphanic sea of enclosures. This

swimming pool `reflects′ the city, thus signifying a mirror of the evolution or digression of industrialization. Despite its

derogatory connotations, its `coolness′ is the only component which offsets the perils of `summer′, described through

the word choice of `quiet water′, however, immediately juxtaposed to a metaphor of `stagnancy and grief′ in the tenth

stanza. One may contrast this to the `bare seas′ in the previous stanza, perhaps a `nostalgic′ inclusion of the

`unattainable′5, nature. This metonymy of the `swimming pool′ is attributed to `a texture which seems to look past

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you′, and emphasised in the parenthesis, a poetic device which conveys an utterance to a feeling of disappointment

since the function of water and the ocean has lost its majestic qualities.

Here too, one is given the impression that the cosmovision of the postmodern personage is altered, even if the

symbology has remained essentially familiar. Despite, Harrison′s attempts to write in his time, a number of his poems

adapt the ocean is a universal signifier, even though its connotations insinuate an ambiguous, unfamiliar entity. The

universal symbol of the ocean has been replaced with the omnipresence of the `image′. In the poem

Summer

, the

epic search for `home′ as Odysseus had long ago yearned, has transcended to a transformative mindset, since in the

twenty first century, the hybrid persona is preoccupied with the pursuit of the `world-famous shot′. The conveyance of

a few fleeting moments with their `priori′ and `meta′ of significations culminate to `figures drifting, ghostlike, on a

riverbank.′ The tourist persona, and poet, realises their rootlesness, suppressed by disorientation as their corrigible

existence is `meaningless′. Cultural restrictions abound due to the barrage of complacencies. This description of a

moment in time, `this split second′, Harrison prescribes, is nothing more than a distorted image, further enhanced by

the fact that the tourist is `jet-lagged′ and engulfed by superficiality and epiphanic surroundings. The poet′s

illumination of time is portrayed by the fleeting snap shot, a minute depiction `snapped′ and `already visualised′.

The contemporary poet is subdued by the images and cinematics. Specifically, the motif of the image, poignantly

disclosed as a `snap shot′ is reminiscent of Jean Baudrillard′s essay `Simulacra and Simulation′ (1994) . The

distortion of reality, the image, a disintegrating malevolence within the search for the real, the unique identity.

Disconcertingly, the image does not present substantial answers, but instead reminds the persona of their own

displacement, in

Summer

even the Americans walk through `a golden shrine′ `heiffer- garlanded with cameras′. The

world has become a smaller place, however appreciation of identity is a distant camouflage. Particularly, as

Baudrillard asserts, a cosmos of `signs′ and codes have saturated the contemporary mindset. In his fourth proposal

of the `simulacrum′, Baudrillard claims the sign `bears no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure

simulacrum′ 6. There seems to be a diminishment of what is termed `reality′ since manufactured products are

reflective of dysfunctional aesthetics rather than ethical pragmatics as culture is mirrored through the acquisition of

object, or commodity rather than spiritual fulfilment. Therefore, it is almost unavoidable for poets not to infuse such

preoccupations in their writings, as the dominance of commodity, cinematics and image proliferate modern society.

From this perspective, it is obvious that Harrison composes his poetry in a way which stipulates such dilemmas of the

contemporary human condition. Harrison describes a search for meaning in a cosmovision of `meaningless′

`greyness′7. This search for meaning in a time, which is uprooted, becomes accentuated in his poem

Flowers: 1.

Landscape

, with its nostalgic portrayal; `in another nearly forgotten image′ that of a slightly familiar, largely unfamiliar

natural `landscape′. Here, Harrison experiments with the externalized and internalized perceptions of the hybrid,

emulated by a `Country with too many names′ while the natural is becoming obsolete since the `dead branches′ are

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`of mirrored white gums.′ The reader is evoked by the loss of authenticity, a `mirage′ of naturalness. Similar to the

poem

Summer

, in this poem, Harrison utilises the metonymy of the `ocean′ as a distorted image, through the simile;

(it′s an ocean as abstract

as snow on a TV screen )

This poignantly perpetuates an image of a superficial existence, an image driven spectrum as the `tv screen′

dominates our perceptions. The familiar metonymy of the ocean, the universal symbol for existence and being with its

`ebb and flow′ is reduced to an `abstract′, ambiguous entity, far removed from the life of the contemporary mindset.

Instead, the persona is confronted with a system of `signs′ and codes of the familiar, only to acknowledge how

unfamiliar they have become. In

Letter From America ­ to Lewis Ruark

, the persona realises;

- an example of a school influenced by

photography, film, other image ­ technologies

with all the longings and absences

which natural things compose these days

we glance at them and they pass us

by.

Nonetheless, these descriptions propose a need for stability, a nostalgia, to fill the internal void and existential

loneliness. In

Flowers: 1. Landscape,

the youth `..are trekking back home/ over dunes bare of shadow′. Therefore,

through the genre of poetry with its universal inducements, Harrison′s anthology is exemplary of the poet having no

choice but to write in their time, describing and prescribing their vulnerabilities, and angst as they search for a

comfort zone.

Contemporary poets, like Harrison, seem to avert their attention to the element of time and the treatment of time, by

describing antithetical objects, events, and movements within the temporal flux. While `time is in all arts′, poetry is a

significantly unique genre since the language utilised is not as important as the evocative semblances it bestows

upon the responder. In our class Harrison prescribed his poetry as lucid projects in which he explores the persona

and thing, the existence of things, and the nature of things. More significantly, he proposes the definition of `things′

have, in contemporary settings, become malevolent commodities. Indeed, the rhizomatic nature of capitalism has

induced perpetual extremes where sensibilities towards ones existence are unattainable. Paradoxically, definite

appreciations are almost an impossibility especially since grand narratives and structural paradigms are somewhat

inapplicable in the chaotic manifestations of the modern city lifestyle. In his essay

What Can Poets Teach?

Harrison

explains;

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