{"id":677,"date":"2002-06-01T21:18:20","date_gmt":"2002-06-01T21:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/walleahpress.com.au\/currajah\/?p=677"},"modified":"2022-09-22T21:22:56","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T21:22:56","slug":"melissa-ashley-in-conversation-with-kate-middleton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walleahpress.com.au\/currajah\/index.php\/2002\/06\/01\/melissa-ashley-in-conversation-with-kate-middleton\/","title":{"rendered":"Melissa Ashley\u2014in conversation with Kate Middleton"},"content":{"rendered":"

KATE MIDDLETON<\/strong><\/p>\n

You were saying before that you\u2019ve written work that has been quite experimental in the past where you feel you might have pushed that too far – what do you see as too far? What does it become?<\/em><\/p>\n

MELISSA ASHLEY<\/strong><\/p>\n

I felt that I went too far in the sense that I stopped communicating with anyone but myself. At university a couple of years ago, I studied Monique Wittig\u2019s The Lesbian Body<\/em>, and while I absolutely adore the book, I also kind of resent it, because it affected my writing in a such detrimental way, down to its very roots and bones. I began producing strange block-style hybrid prose poems about Greek goddesses and the anatomy of the female body. I knew what I was talking about, however I don\u2019t know if anyone else did – or cared – and that\u2019s a problem. Wittig is also a philosopher, and via The Lesbian Body<\/em> was attempting to push out the boundaries of poetic language, trying to rupture the dichotomous structures of Western thought (such an unambitious project!). So when I picked up on this, probably on a more sensual (and by that I mean poetic rather than philosophical), than intellectual level – only half-aware of what I was doing – my writing became very convoluted.<\/p>\n

What I know now is that Wittig\u2019s project was a moment in time, the world has since changed – thank god we don\u2019t live in the seventies – we\u2019ve gone beyond the literary fashion of goddess-archetypes; however for a while I was seduced. So as a result of descending into this poetic Gehenna (hell), (and subsequently clawing my way back) I\u2019ve become very sensitive about experimental writing. I feel that some people are partial to it – you\u2019ve got generations of American language poets, and Australian too – but it leaves others cold.<\/p>\n

[part of an interview<\/a> published in ‘Famous Reporter 25’, June 2002]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KATE MIDDLETON You were saying before that you\u2019ve written work that has been quite experimental in the past where you feel you might have pushed that too far – what … Continue reading “Melissa Ashley\u2014in conversation with Kate Middleton”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[106,103,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ashley-melissa","category-interviews","category-middleton-kate"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t