Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T15:28:40.717Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

17 - Not the Poem Alone

In Medias Res

from Part IV - Embodied Poetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2024

Ann Vickery
Affiliation:
Deakin University, Victoria
Get access

Summary

This chapter argues that ecopoetry is too easily absorbed back into the logics of capitalism and colonialism. Aware of the delimiting forces surrounding its own context, the chapter argues to be taken not as an essay but as an action. It argues that for a poem to bring about environmental change, it must be part of connected interventions. The chapter outlines the poetic yarning between John Kinsella and Charmaine Papertalk Green, a member of the Wajarri, Badimaya, and Nhanagardi people of the Yamaji Nation, as a means of generative protest. It also provides an example of poems written in medias res in the collective resistance to a proposal to build bike trails on Walwalinj, a mountain sacred to the Ballardong Noongar people. This example demonstrates a poem is shaped by the particular situation and how the poem is one part of a network of actions that formed a campaign that was led by Aboriginal elders. The chapter also includes collaborative poetry written during the Roe 8 Highway protests in 2016 and poetry protesting the proposed destruction of the Julimar Forest by mining companies.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Hughes-D’Aeth, Tony. “Can Poetry Stop a Highway? Wielding Words in the Battle over Roe 8.” The Conversation, 11 January 2017. https://theconversation.com/can-poetry-stop-a-highway-wielding-words-in-the-battle-over-roe-8-71005.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John. Divine Comedy: Journeys through a Regional Geography. University of Queensland Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John. Polysituatedness. Manchester University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John. Beyond Ambiguity. Manchester University Press, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinsella, John. Collected Poems Volume Two (2005–2014): Harsh Hakea. UWA Publishing, 2023.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John. “The Argonautica I Am Re-envisaging and Will Eventually Try to Forget, as I Should?” Meanjin, March 2023. https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-argonautica-i-am-re-envisaging-and-will-eventually-try-to-forget-as-i-should/.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John and Quinton, J. P.. The Other Report: Poems against the Destruction of the Beeliar Wetlands. Shed Under the Mountain Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Papertalk Green, Charmaine and Kinsella, John. False Claims of Colonial Thieves. Magabala Books, 2018.Google Scholar
Slessor, Kenneth. “North Country.” Five Bells: XX Poems. Frank Johnson, 1939, pp. 3031.Google Scholar
Slessor, Kenneth. “South Country.” Five Bells: XX Poems. Frank Johnson, 1939, p. 32.Google Scholar
Slessor, Kenneth. “Beach Burial.” Southerly vol.5 no.3, 1944, p. 13.Google Scholar
Winmar, Dorothy. Walwalinj: The Hill That Cries. Quik Printing Services, 1996.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Not the Poem Alone
  • Edited by Ann Vickery, Deakin University, Victoria
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry
  • Online publication: 06 June 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009470186.023
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Not the Poem Alone
  • Edited by Ann Vickery, Deakin University, Victoria
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry
  • Online publication: 06 June 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009470186.023
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Not the Poem Alone
  • Edited by Ann Vickery, Deakin University, Victoria
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry
  • Online publication: 06 June 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009470186.023
Available formats
×