Cirrus@Austlit

'Welcome to Australian Poetry Journal 7.1, part of the new suite of poetry publications by Australian Poetry. This year’s Australian Poetry Anthology (guest eds., Lisa Gorton and Toby Fitch), published in March, was the first in this series. The designer is Stuart Geddes, with the vision of a physical elegance and beauty to reflect the calibre of the modern, contemporary, various poetry contained within: photographic art features on covers. Another trope is the commissioning of poetry guest editors for each volume of APJ. This allows the Journal to flex issue to issue, and to curate a broad while meritorious range of poetic voice. The poetry selections for 7.1, themed to ‘skin’, have been guest-edited collaboratively by Ali Cobby Eckermann and Ellen van Neerven, two of the country’s leading Aboriginal poets and editors. Their choice, selecting from the high level of open submissions by both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) poets, and poets who are not, was to divide their poems into two distinct sections: SKIN I POEMS, which opens the poetry here, are poems by poets who identify as ATSI; SKIN II POEMS are poems by non-ATSI poets, while still reflecting a cultural breadth. Some of the poems were commissioned by the editors from new Aboriginal poets located in workshops, some in far-flung territory. The Journal closes with another new feature for APJ: an extensive suite of poems, commissioned specifically by Australian Poetry, as presented across our annual major capital city literary festival partnerships. Both van Neerven and Eckermann, independently, were presented in this series, edited by the program director of our Australian Poets Festival 2016–2017, Toby Fitch. Thank-you to the essential support of our main funders: Australia Council for the Arts, Creative Victoria and Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.' (Publisher Note)

'In this beautifully crafted, evocative and poignant anthology of prose and fiction, a diverse group of young black writers are encouraged to find strength in their voices and what is important to them. maar bidi is a journey into what it is to be young, a person of colour and a minority in divergent and conflicting worlds. All talk to what is meaningful to them, whilst connecting the old and the new, the ancient and the contemporary in a variety of ways. 

'These young essayists, critics, novelists, poets, authors shake down words and works to find styles, forms and meanings that have influenced them and all their writings. These pieces are snapshots of peoples, places and perception.' (Publication summary)