Nicolette Stasko, Dwelling in the Shape of Things

Dwelling In The Shape Of Things is a sequence of sixteen elegantly executed meditations on the work of Cezanne.

"In sixteen sections the poet meditates on a series of paintings by Cézanne and generates some of [her] most sophisticated and densely-textured work. Stasko here is concerned to articulate not only her personal response to the paintings but, more ambitiously perhaps, to create a verbal equivalent to them, akin, in some ways, to a translation. While some traditional art critics might well benefit from reading this sequence, ‘Dwelling in the Shape of Things’ is not a piece of art criticism or scholarship. It does show, however, that there is more than one useful and persuasive way of responding verbally to great paintings."  — Geoff Page, ABC Radio National

Nicolette Stasko’s work is well known and widely anthologised. She is a recipient of the Anne Elder Award and has been short-listed for the National Book Award and the NSW Premier’s Prize. Nicolette has published five volumes of poetry, the most recent Glass Cathedrals: New and Selected Poems (Salt 2006). She is also the author of the acclaimed non-fiction Oyster and a book of fiction The Invention of Everyday Life. Nicolette is currently working on her sixth collection among other things —including completing a book on Orientalist art and modernism and A History of the Fork.

Rare Object Number 8.
8 pages. Published 1999.
Cover image by Kay Orchison.