Cirrus@Austlit

'It is not lost on me that the name of this journal tugs against the current issue's dedication to Indigenous poetries - the rabbit is a pest, an interloper, on Australian soil; a signifier of colonisation. I grew up with rabbits all around: big white bunnies with brown spots that were our pets, dragging the hutch across the lawn to mow another patch of grass; wild rabbits in the paddocks that had to be controlled; Nanna’s rabbit stew; Nanna saying KFC was actually rabbit meat; rabbits in the headlights with myxo-eyes; a hind leg and two kidneys deposited by a fox beneath the car. When I was born, my sister gifted me her toy rabbit, and he is still a constant companion.’ (Jessica L. Wilkinson : Editorial introduction)

‘What is Indigenous nonfiction poetry?

In short, it is Indigenous poetry. There is no need for the nonfiction qualifier. Peoples so vast and unalike tongue accounts at the common wound of colonisation, and turn that tongue inward to map their mouths. A global tradition that is so nebulous it’s difficult to pin down, and yet clarifies the closer you zoom – continent to region to nation to clan to person. (Alison Whittaker Poetry Editorial introduction)