Paper Summary:

This paper examines the philosophical implications regarding place made in David Malouf's poems "An Ordinary Evening at Hamilton", "Sheer Edge", "Elegy: The Absences", "At the Ferry", "At my Grandmother's" and "Poetry Makes Nothing Happen". The paper also focuses on Malouf's depiction of Australia as a land of genesis. It concludes that Malouf succeeds in stepping back from conventionalities on the philosophy of place to create a world in flux and constant rebirth, where absences are voids to be filled through language and the poem.

Outline:
Philosophy of Place
The Australian Experience of Place

From the Paper:

"Malouf does make a distinction between inner and outer place, (Indyk 22) however, in G, where the concept of familiarity ('my grandmother's') and images of comfort ('afternoon late summer') are juxtaposed with nightmarish imagery ('grey wings', 'ghosts of children') to illustrate how a new place or world may be created from an existing one by projecting thoughts on to it. Thus the concepts of "inner" and "outer" places: places that exist inside a person, which may be projected outwards, and what might be called "brick and mortar" places. This sense of separation is emphasized by the 'shuttered room', and the idea of being in an 'underwater world', but is completely broken in OEH where the 'garden shifts indoors' and the world seems to dissolve into a single consciousness."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Indyk, Ivor. David Malouf. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1993.
• Kavanagh, P. "Interview with David Malouf." Southerly 46.3 (1986): 247-259.
• Lee, Martin. "At the Edge of Geography and the Imagination in the work of David Malouf." Australian Literary Studies, 12.1 (1985): 3-21.
• Malouf, David. Johnno. University of Queensland Press, 1975.
• Tipping, Kelly. "An interview with David Malouf."Southerly 49.3 (1989): 492-502.

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