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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'It is twenty years since Night Song and Other Poems was published. That was a poetic recording of my journey from childhood, through adolescence, marriage and a return to Australia from twelve years in Aotearoa New Zealand. The foci in that book – identity, family, childhood – were deliberately occluded. My sexuality, in the 1980s of its writing, was presented as though I was at the time a straight man coming to terms with my Wiradjuri heritage. I skirted around Aboriginal politics and identity.
'No more. The journey continues in this book and I, as tour guide, take you to unvisited, secret places that were definitely not seen to be acceptable or proper to visit in the past. The Mabo judgement informed much of my thinking in Night Song and there is no doubt that the same-sex marriage debate of 2018 and its outcome inform these poems. They are less tentative and far more certain in my expression of Aboriginal and sexual identity and acceptance.
'My real life experiences are here – expressed guts and all – far more honestly than before, and hang the consequences in the open. For me, wholly healthy. A long-time friend has often said, ‘It’s amazing how death changes you.’ Not living authentically has been a living death for me. Like the Ancient Mariner, I have unshackled multiple albatrosses from my being, and have finally blessed all those facets of myself once believed to be slimy, ugly and at all costs to be avoided. The Murrumbidgee is a river I was born next to … and now, seventy and more years later, am returned to.'
Source: Author's blurb (via Cordite).
Notes
-
Epigraph: The precept to fast and abstain on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday is not dispensed from.
- In response to Canon 1253, Roman Catholic Church
Contents
- Introduction to John Mukky Burke’s Late Murrumbidgee Poems, single work essay
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
September in Poetry
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , September 2020;
— Review of Ask Me About the Future 2020 selected work poetry ; Blur by The 2019 selected work poetry ; Case Notes 2020 selected work poetry ; Late Murrumbidgee Poems 2020 selected work poetry -
Introduction to John Mukky Burke’s Late Murrumbidgee Poems
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Late Murrumbidgee Poems 2020;
-
September in Poetry
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , September 2020;
— Review of Ask Me About the Future 2020 selected work poetry ; Blur by The 2019 selected work poetry ; Case Notes 2020 selected work poetry ; Late Murrumbidgee Poems 2020 selected work poetry -
Introduction to John Mukky Burke’s Late Murrumbidgee Poems
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Late Murrumbidgee Poems 2020;
Awards
- 2021 highly commended Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Prize for Indigenous Writing