St. Clair (collection)

St. Clair : Three Narratives
AuthorJohn A. Scott
LanguageEnglish
GenrePoetry collection
PublisherUniversity of Queensland Press
Publication date1986
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint
Pages132 pp
Awards1986 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, winner
ISBN070221907X

St. Clair : Three Narratives is a collection of poems by Australian poet John A. Scott, published by University of Queensland Press in 1986.[1]

The collection contains 21 poems. The poems in the "St. Clair" poetry sequence were originally published in Neither Nuked Nor Crucified and Other Poems edited by Christopher Pollnitz, a 1984 Australian poetry anthology, with the remainder being published here for the first time.[2]

It was the co-winner of the 1986 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry with Rhyll McMaster's Washing the Money : Poems with Photographs.[3]

Contents

  • "Preface (for Helen Williams of Ainslie 'If She Wants It')"
  • "1. St. Clair : An Opening Description"
  • "2. St. Clair : In Which the Last of the Legitimate Patients Considers His Health"
  • "3. St. Clair : A View from a Train"
  • "4. St. Clair : The Homunculus Child"
  • "5. St. Clair : A Shorter History of the Insane"
  • "6. St. Clair : Reverie"
  • "7. St. Clair : The Increasing Difficulty of Silence"
  • "8. St. Clair : Reverie"
  • "9. St. Clair : In Which a Patient is Cured of Insanity and a Rainbow Appears"
  • "10. St. Clair : A Letter"
  • "11. St. Clair : In Which Warren Confides in Sheehan"
  • "12. St. Clair : In Which There is a Disturbance in Finchley's Room"
  • "13. St. Clair : On Truth"
  • "14. St. Clair : Inside Two Bedrooms"
  • "15. St. Clair : In Which Warren's Ex-Wife Might be Seen to Extend the Metaphor"
  • "16. St. Clair : In Which a Number of Decisions are Reached"
  • "17. St. Clair : Finchley Goes Home"
  • "18. St. Clair : A Closing Incident"
  • "19. St. Clair : Envoi"
  • "Run in the Stocking"

Critical reception

In a review of the collection for The Age newspaper Jennifer Strauss noted that "readers will probably struggle for bearings in Scott's treatment [of incarceration of political dissidents], which is multi-focused, elliptic and linguistically demanding as he tries to image a world both phantasmagoric and horrifyingly prosaic."[4]

Publication history

After the collection's initial publication by the University of Queensland Press in 1986[1] it was reprinted as follows:

Notes

  • Dedication: For Kathryn Riessen, Robert Moore and Steve Dunne
  • Epigraphs:

Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told. - Gide, The Immortalist

And if I speak to you outside of what I have written, these marginal comments cannot have the value of what I have written, these marginal comments cannot have the value of the work itself. - Hegel, 'Preface' to the Phenomenology of the Mind

What is not herein described must be guessed. - Spare, The Grimoire of Zos

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "St. Clair : Three Narratives by John A. Scott (UQP)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
  2. ↑ "Austlit — St. Clair : Three Narratives by John A. Scott". Austlit. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
  3. ↑ ""Tall tales"". The Age, 1 October 1986, p84. ProQuest 2521218973. Retrieved 15 October 2024.
  4. ↑ ""Poets radical and reflective"". The Age, 14 June 1986. ProQuest 2521392841. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
  5. ↑ "St. Clair : Three Narratives by John A. Scott (Picador)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
  6. ↑ "St. Clair : Three Narratives by John A. Scott (Untapped)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 27 June 2026.
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