#AusReadingMonth2020 Bella Li

• Title: Argosy
• Author: Bella Li
  
• Genre: prose poems, collages, images
  
• Published: 2017
• Bingo card:  VIC
  
• #AusReadingMonth2020   @bronasbooks
  
• #AWW2020  @AustralianWomenWriters
• Trivia:  The book models itself from Max Ernst’s collage novels
• — Une semaine de bonté: A Surrealistic Novel in Collage
• — La femme 100 têtes
• Trivia: Winner Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2018
  
• Trivia: Winner Kenneth Slessor Prize 2018 (New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award)

 

Conclusion:

1. I had high hopes for this book
2. …but after reading it I am convinced
3. I have a lot to learn about poetry.
4. The book contains 14 small chapters:
5. 7 chapters  = collage images;   7 chapters = text.
6. Collage/images:
7. Ms Li used historical illustrations made by French explorers.
8. and added some of her own imaginative visuals including
9. …position seashells, butterflies, and animals atop
10. 18th and 19th C explorer sketches from La Pèrouse.
11. Ms Li  places her prose poem sequences
12. in between the image sections
13. …that play with quiet and fantastical visual scenes

 

1. Text:  prose poetry , ‘vers libre’ imitating the style Rimbaud uses.
2. It is ESSENTIAL TO KNOW... the back round information Li uses as
3. as basis for part 1 of the book: “La Pérouse, une semane de disparitions”
4. Chapters Les Rêves (7 stanzas) and Les Incendies (7 stanzas).

• On March 10, 1788, the French explorer
• Jean-François de Galaup de La Pérouse departed  (wikipedia info)
  
• the penal colony of Sydney, having spent six weeks stocking up on supplies.
• Now it was time to resume his exploration of the Pacific.
• He sailed north out of the harbour, bound for
• New Caledonia and the Solomons, due to return home the following year.
• He was never seen again.

 

Ms Li’s objective:   Part 1

1. Use prose poetry to compose a vision of the explorer’s demise.
2. Voice to La Pérouse’s thoughts and observations.
3. Describe what he felt/seen shipwrecked on Vanikoro, an atoll of the Solomon Islands

 

My experience:

1. I read part 1 with NO knowledge of Ms Li’s  narrative objective.
2. My note in the book:  “I can’t  make heads of tails of this!”
3. After I did discover what I was missing
4. ...the poems made more sense.
5. So I hope this helps you if you want to read Argosy.

 

Ms Li’s objective:  Part 2  (title: The Hundred Headless Woman)

1. …female character sketches:
2. Isodora: A Western: (ref – dancer Isadora Duncan and ref – Cormac McCarthy
3. io sono l’amore: (ref: film maker Luca Guadagnino)
4. The Novelist Elena Ferrante (ref: to Ischia, place used in EF’s novels)
5. The Memory Machine Elena Obieta (ref: SF writer Ricardo Piglia and his fictional character Elena Obieta)
6. The poem 아가씨 (ref: film The Handmaiden, 2016)…little story of Tamako
   

 

My experience:

1. Without some back round information
2. …I was lost while reading part 2.
3. Ms Li DID PROVIDE NOTES  on page 168…
4. I should have read them BEFORE reading the book!!
5. I was lost during the first reading of this book
6. ….but it was my own fault!
7. After re-reading the entire book
8. I now realize why  Ms Bella Li
9. has been awarded many literary awards
10. .…she pushes the boundaries of poetry!
11. This book requires a deep engagement with the text
12. …in order to make meaning from it.
13. #GoodRead  for poetry buffs….