Poetry - Second-Hand Attack Dog: A Verse Novella Critical Essay - David Foster: How to Fight

nPoetryThis creative writing thesis has two components: a verse novella, Second-Hand Attack Dog, and a ncritical essay, lDavid Foster: How to Fightr. Second-Hand Attack Dog is the story of Rodney, a lead singer in an unpopular Brisbane rock band. The work draws on naturalistic Australian dialogue and is formatted with a paratextual lscriptr running alongside the poetry. As well as this script supplementing the poetryrs contextual information, it also provides the reader with a complementarynpoint of view to that of the first-person verse. The creative workrs main character encapsulates a masculinity glimpsed across many Australian musicians, and recounts the behaviour and dialogue of local rock music culture as I observed them through my own experience as a street press reviewer and audience member in Brisbaners live music scene. Central to this culture is Australian idiomatic languagemthe definitively harsh style of communication. The way I approach this language is particularly influenced by the novelist David Foster, whose use of Australian vernacular in his fiction is both unique and compelling.Critical EssayThe essay examines three works by David Foster, highlighting the significance of both his personal experience and his reputation to the way he writes Australian characters and language. The works addressed in this essay are: Studs and Nogs: Essays 1987-98 (1999), and two novels: Moonlite (1981) and The Adventures of Christian Rosy Cross (1986). A central element of Fosterrs writing philosophy is the necessity of immediate contact with the kinds of people his work portrays. The essay links to my creative work through the way realistic or even outright recorded speech is valued for its ability to reveal more about a community than an idealised representation can. It is the opinion of Foster, and myself, that it is best to replace stereotypes with truth, as to do otherwise (especially if the stereotypes are not typically lnegativer but instead present an overly sanitised or sanctioned view of Australia) can give the country credit for social evolution where none is warranted. In turn, by examining the image Foster creates for himself, and the sometimes unpopular way he comments on social issues, I clarify the difference between Fosterrs idiosyncratic, lanti-establishmentr approach and the way he has been charged with being too offensive. Furthermore, I question the critical soundness of condemning Fosterrs approach as lintolerantr, when in many cases the writing simply represents language that Foster maintains he witnesses daily.