Dymocks' Todd Alexander recently interviewed John about The Architect , his time in Paris as a poetry scholar, and language. It is so refreshing to read an Australian author who seems so willing to experiment with language in fiction. In both, the words come directly as a consequence of the characterisation, not from any desire to experiment per se . The older I get, the more I seek to use a plain prose style, concentrating more on story. It's the same fate as has befallen poetry.
Poetry is a double-edged sword.
You learn to use language at its most intense but this is far too intense for prose fiction. I've been teaching myself to progressively strip the 'poetry' away the bulk of The Architect is told in very simple prose. In 1990 I had the use of the Australia Council studio at the Cit Internationale des Arts. During that time I finished the two extended prose-poems, Elegy and The Apology . I was also, though I hardly knew it at the time, gathering material for What I Have Written .