Kite and Quilt: Olives Senior's exploration of her poetic inheritance

Authors

Anne A. Collett, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

78200

Publication Details

Collett, A. A. (2012). Kite and Quilt: Olives Senior's exploration of her poetic inheritance. Kunapipi: journal of postcolonial writing, XXXIV (2), 123-131.

Abstract

In the poem 'Ode to Pablo Neruda', published in her most recent collection of poetry, over the rooft of the world (2005), Olive Senior finds herself 'drifting and wordless', so far from the sea she cannot strike the right chord. The poet nanator calls upon the spirit and word-craft of Pablo Neruda to help her re-discover the lost measure that will move others:

So I tum to find again something you said about grasping poetry like a thread?

Here it is:

You must spin it

fly a thread

and climb it ... This isn't a matter

for deliberation

its an order. ('Ode to Pablo Neruda' 92)