Event
November 12, 2014 posted by Unity Wellington

LAUNCH | I, Clodia and Other Portraits by Anna Jackson | Thursday 27th Nov 6pm | Unity Wellington

LAUNCH | I, Clodia and Other Portraits by Anna Jackson | Thursday 27th Nov 6pm | Unity Wellington
I, Clodia Invite

Auckland University Press, Anna Jackson & Unity Wellington
invite you to celebrate the publication of

 

I, Clodia and Other Portraits
An Illustrated History

by Anna Jackson

6pm Thursday 27th November 2014
Unity Books Wellington
57 Willis Street

 

I, CLODIA is the story of Clodia Metelli – poet and lover – and her relations with her far-away paramour Catullus, with her husband Metellus Celer, her brother Publius Clodius and her accuser Cicero. By giving Clodia – the ‘Lesbia’ of Catullus’s famous love poetry – her own first-person narration, Anna Jackson upends and reinvigorates the beloved classical sequence with biting wit and tender attention.

Who was Clodia and what did she think about the affair, the gossip, the scandal, the poems? Jackson honours and subverts her source material in lines that are a marvel of ventriloquism. The book’s second section, ‘The photographer’s secret’, furthers this superb exploration of voice and portrayal. The photographer in this sequence reads, writes, gives presents and considers the art of portraiture. But who is examining, and who is being examined?

Above all else, Anna Jackson takes us within and without a range of characters in her characteristically witty style – sometimes mock breathless, sometimes dryly pointed, and always clever, stylish and emotionally engaging. If a photograph is a ‘secret about a secret’, as Diane Arbus put it, these poems are also secrets – about lives; about portraiture; about those who have the power to record and betray.

 

RSVP to Auckland University Press by 21 November
Phone 09-373-7528 or email pressmarketing@auckland.ac.nz

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Unity Books Wellington - Proudly committed to local writing and publishing since 1967, and dedicated to keeping a dangerous variety of world literature too. 100% independent and Wellington owned. Come check us out at 57 Willis St and ask the staff for a recommendation - we know our books.

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