Volume 6, Issue 1, November 2013
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Letter from the Poetry Editor, Heather Taylor Johnson
Welcome to the November 2013 issue of Transnational Literature. Anyone involved in the Australian poetry community will know that it has been a difficult time as two of our own award winning poets have been 'outed' as plagiarists. While this has caused poets from around the nation (and indeed, the world) great concern, poets have been reconsidering the idea of authentication, wondering can art ever truly be unique. Who owns a literary work? The author? The publisher? The reader? These questions are for every writer – not only poets – and they are especially true for editors, who are now expected to be the guardians of authenticity. I honestly do not know how to go about doing my job any differently than how I've been doing for the past eight years: have faith in the legitimacy of an author's passionate desire to communicate. I hope that when you read our authors, you'll feel that passion.
In this issue homage is paid to Ludwig Wittgenstein as a woman analyses love to the point of feeling it; Allen Ginsberg's footsteps in India are retraced in a discovery of Indian influence on the Beat Poets; the Yellow Emperor of China c.2697-2597 BCE resurfaces to apologise to one of his wives – passionate muses abound. Diane Bell pays tribute to the late Ngarrindjeri man Tom Trevorrow, whose lifetime work was keeping the stories of the Old People alive and tirelessly fighting for reconciliation – memories of a passionate life. And of course there are book reviews: two, in fact, of reprinted Australian classics, reminding us that passion still lives in the pages of our paperback books. As a possible commentary on the displacement of cultural histories, identities, morals and ethics of transnational lives, the writing in this issue echoes the words of Ouyang Yu, who reminds us of the borderlessness of our spiritual landscapes and the passion it insists upon:
If one struggles and gets nowhere
Think of the sky that remains hollow and empty
Perhaps because it still hasn't begun charging a fee
To the passing planes
Enjoy, and may the passion be with you.
Heather Taylor Johnson
Click here for Contents page and editor's note in PDF format
Recent Submissions
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Editor's letter and contents page for Transnational Literature, Vol. 6, no. 1, November 2013
(2013-11)Poetry editor's letter and contents page for the November 2013 issue of Transnational Literature, vol. 6 no. 1. -
Philosophy and Literature; Philosophy as Literature: Call for Papers
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Tom Trevorrow: A Ngarrindjeri Man of High Degree
(2013-11-07)A memoir of Ngarrindjeri man Tom Trevorrow who died in April 2013. -
Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete prose creative writing
(2013-11-02)All prose creative writing from Transnational Literature, November 2013, in one file for ease of downloading and printing. -
Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete history, theory and criticism
(2013-11-02)All history, theory and criticism book reviews from Transnational Literature, November 2013, in one file for ease of downloading and printing. -
The Valley of the Shadow
(2013-11-02)Extract from the novel in progress 'The Maker of Stories and Songs'. -
Transnational Literature November 2013: Contributors
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Revisiting Trauma: Writing, a 'Novel' Approach to Catharsis and Redemption
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Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete Articles and Review Essay
(2013-11-02)Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete articles and review essay in one file for ease of uploading and printing. -
Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete life-writing reviews
(2013-11-02)All life-writing book reviews from Transnational Literature, November 2013, in one file for ease of downloading and printing. -
Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete fiction book reviews
(2013-11-02)All fiction book reviews from Transnational Literature, November 2013, in one file for ease of downloading and printing. -
Transnational Literature November 2013: Complete Poetry Reviews
(2013-11-02)All poetry book reviews from Transnational Literature, November 2013, in one file for ease of downloading and printing.