Outside Broadcast

Poetry and music are brought together in a spellbinding way by Deakin University’s Professor David McCooey in his new CD Outside Broadcast.

Professor McCooey describes the work as a poetry soundtrack.

"The term poetry soundtrack deliberately echoes the film soundtrack," Professor McCooey said.

"Each engages a totality of sound - speech, music, and noise - and each employs audio technology to produce its complex effects.

“It is original poetry, music and sound design.

“The sounds in Outside Broadcast range from the cinematic to the brooding, from lyrical evocations to unsettling landscapes.”

Professor McCooey wrote, performed and recorded the CD himself. The album’s artwork, titled “Encoded Landscape, Princes Highway” is by the Melbourne artist Michele Burder.

Outside Broadcast is not Professor McCooey’s first venture in poetry soundtracks.

They have appeared in CD editions of Going Down Swinging and online in Cordite and Axon.

They have also been featured on ABC Radio National’s Poetica program.

At Deakin Professor McCooey is highly regarded as an international expert in Australian literary studies. His areas of speciality are autobiography and poetry.

His Artful Histories: Modern Australian Autobiography was published by Cambridge University Press in 1996, the same year that the book was awarded a NSW Premier’s Literary Award.

His publications on poetry include the “Contemporary Poetry” chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature (2000), the “Poetry: 1970-2005” chapter in The Companion to Australian Literature (2007), and the

“Autobiography” chapter in The Cambridge History of Australian Literature.

Professor McCooey has also written numerous essays and reviews for scholarly and general publications such as Criticism, Biography, Southerly, Meanjin, Westerly, Australian Book Review, The Age, The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and JASAL. He has also written Introductions to 30 Australian Poets (UQP, 2011) and Rosemary Dobson Collected (UQP, 2012).

His first book of poetry, Blister Pack was published internationally by Salt Publishing in 2005. Blister Pack won the Mary Gilmore Award (for a first book of poetry) and was short-listed for four major awards, including The Melbourne Prize for Literature (New Writing Award), Australia’s richest literary award.

Outside Broadcast is available on iTunes.

Have a sneak listen on Soundcloud