In discussing her recent work Horse, Ania drew her inspiration for her Horse poetry book from a dream. “I didn’t know how Horse would end up or what would happen but I knew that there was something remarkable happening, that was sort of almost guided by an outside power. But you know I found ideas which are supposed to be also generated within Freud’s writing, of the Kabbalistic thought which has always interested me: the sort of magic of language, that language can multiply itself and form secret and unusual patterns, while everything is put away in the drawer, and things of this nature. But I think because I was going into the fairytale territory, and the fairytale area is an area of magic.”
Influences
Ania was very sensitive to the treatment of performance artists which operate outside the normal practices. A fellow performance artist, John Cage, is known for creating interesting pieces of music that stretch the traditional limits and practices of musicians. His work, once considered controversial, led people to reject his work. The story John Cage told her about how professional orchestras that destroyed his instruments, because they refused to play his work, was very influential on her because it showed the intolerance of people who should not be intolerant to artists. In Anias’ one-woman play called “Telltale” she uses the influence and experience of her childhood to convey her work. “The play is populated with a lifetime of characters, some of whom have survived those early days when Walwicz did invent stories in the once- upon-a-time world of her childhood. "In a way there's millions The person begins in a chaotic state and winds up in one of grace." Several cultural influence impacted Ania throughout her life. Ania is strong believer in Feminism. As such, she rewrote Little Red Riding hood from a feminist viewpoint. In addition, Ania was “Inspired by writers like Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky, her written work is featured in over 200 anthologies and in secondary and tertiary literary curricula and sound recordings of her works feature in Voiceprints.” As a nonconformist, Ania was once was critical of a beloved author and received backlash from the professor and she got the underlying message was “you will believe what others believe”. This was very influential on her overall attitude towards authority and orthodoxy. This attitude has helped Ania transcend boundaries that many in the artistic community would place upon her. Ultimately, Ania believes in the beauty found in creation. In particular, Ania believes in the power of writing. "A person once said to me that the act of writing is the ultimate act of hope. That you have this empty page and you can do something with it. So that's a beautiful thought. We can always start again.”
Importance of Sound
As a performance artist, Ania understands the importance of sound in her poetry. “It starts as writing and is writing first and foremost. Fundamentally it has to be in writing because sound productions can be dismissed. The act of writing, for me, is an aural event. The Processes of thinking and reading are aural. Other people have read my work in a different way. The problem with my public reading of my work is that people think that’s the way it has to be read. But its open to interpretation.”
Poetry Reading
In addition to creating poetry, Ania Walwicz is also a performance artist, often recording many of her original works. Many of her recordings are available online, which include selections from her award-winning poetry.
Critical Response
As an experimental poet, sometimes her work is met with criticism. “This impulse to return to origins, to childhood and new beginnings, is a recurrent one in Walwicz's work. Language is the possibility of renewal, of writing the self. It may be a treacherous or dangerous womb, but it is in its dangerousness, its sharpness, that it rewards the experimental poet who, through repetition, insistence, flights of lyrical affirmation and childlike simplicity, incants the new self. Questions of control are thematised, as the poet struggles with language for the desired effect, the new languaged self. But it can also be argued that poet and language seem to be coming from the same angle, in a relationship of concurrence, confronting the more conventional.” “A number of contradictions shape the poetry of Polish-Australian writer Ania Walwicz. These contradictions are bred partly by the literary theory which has so insistently surrounded her work, and, it will be argued, are partly inherent in the enterprise of avant-garde or experimental poetry.”
