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'In ‘they rise’ Jazz Money, a Wiradjuri poet and filmmaker addresses the future of the stolen lands we call Australia as a proud blak woman (Cordite, February 2021). Her voice rises above inferiority, trauma or shame. The poem is defiant, a wry celebration of the same bodies that colonialism makes ambivalent and abject by enabling its ‘superior’, cis-gendered whiteness:
turns out the future is technicolour blak black brown turns out we’re all welcome here queer brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings if you been here since the first sunrise or if you come here now just now come here heart open come here hurt from those wars and those sea levels rising
How do we turn out poetry that shows we are all welcome here? How do we collectively transpose settler privilege and oppressive hierarchies and why does it matter? What is wrong with a received system of naming, making categories and borders, if our hallowed aesthetics are tone deaf and mute to the sound of blak, brown and hybrid bodies breaking, dying, suffering? Listen to the poems here: we are suffering not merely because our tears matter less, or are less visible in the capitalist settler colony, but also because there are families that have been wartorn, assimilated and broken; there are forests that have been denuded, oceans pillaged and polluted, sacred sites mined, vestiges appropriated and rebranded, and all of this touches us multifariously, yet still, our protest is being silenced.' (Lucy Dougan Michelle Cahill Foreword introduction)
Notes
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Epigraph: The planes arrive with dawn, screeching through the rooftop — between us — there is air —Rico Craig
Contents
- Alieni"a new", single work poetry (p. 12)
- Dragonflyi"A Tiffany stained-glass lamp", single work poetry (p. 13-14)
- Servicei"Early morning, Saturday, the day", single work poetry (p. 15)
- The Good Breasti"It was Christmas Eve at St Vincent’s Hospital breakfast time when they", single work poetry (p. 16)
- Pearls and Power Belliesi"things here reproduce at every drop of rain, and corner", single work poetry (p. 17-18)
- Diggingi"Fate dragged me across the continent", single work poetry (p. 19)
- Letter to a Loved Onei"Dear dear one Dearest one Dear cherished", single work poetry (p. 20)
- Imbibed Aubadei"stepping out with all the serenity of", single work poetry (p. 21)
- Daily Devotionali"Did we start the day with hide and seek?", single work poetry (p. 22-23)
- Planes Are Landing in the Attici"The houses we rent have too many stairs", single work poetry (p. 24-25)
- A Jetty All Too Sooni"we slept like those grubs that drop from", single work poetry (p. 28)
- The Extinction of My Childhoodi"came with surprising nostalgia", single work poetry (p. 29)
- Swimming/Drowningi"we line up at the pool.", single work poetry (p. 30-31)
- Looki"i met fin in year nine when i moved to his school of boys, and of laptops. in", single work poetry (p. 32)
- Cake Boyi"He has no strong opinions at the video store", single work poetry (p. 33)
- Every Time I Buy Fruit It Turns Rotten, Forgotten In The Bowli"there was a tattoo between you shoulder blades that I wanted", single work poetry (p. 34)
- 1983i"The year Han Solo was released from carbonite", single work poetry (p. 35)
- Couplei"When my mother spoke, he ignored her.", single work poetry (p. 36)
- Feygele, Little Birdi"It was my grandma’s 100th birthday yesterday,", single work poetry (p. 39-41)
- Flowersi"I’m embarrassed when my mother picks flowers off the trees", single work poetry (p. 42)
