Issue Details: First known date: 2018... 2018 'Let No One Say the Past Is Dead' : History Wars and the Poetry of Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Sonia Sanchez
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The histories of Australian Aboriginal and African American peoples have been disregarded for more than two centuries. In the 1960s, Aboriginal and African American civil rights activists addressed this neglect. Each endeavoured to write a critical version of history that included their people(s). This article highlights the role of Aboriginal Australian poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal (formerly Kath Walker) (1920–93) and African American poet Sonia Sanchez (born 1934) in reviving their peoples’ history. Using Deleuze and Guattari's concept of ‘minor literature’, the essay shows how these poets deterritorialise the English language and English poetry and exploit their own poetries as counter-histories to record milestone events in the history of their peoples. It will also highlight the importance of these accounts in this ‘history war’. It examines selected poems from Oodgeroo's My People: A Kath Walker Collection and Sanchez's Home Coming and We A BaddDDD People to demonstrate that similarities in their poetic themes are the result of a common awareness of a global movement of black resistance. This shared awareness is significant despite the fact that the poets have different ethnicities and little direct literary impact upon each other.'

Source: Abstract.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Queensland Review vol. 25 no. 1 June 2018 14226536 2018 periodical issue 2018 pg. 163-176
Last amended 2 Aug 2018 08:20:27
163-176 'Let No One Say the Past Is Dead' : History Wars and the Poetry of Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Sonia Sanchezsmall AustLit logo Queensland Review
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