Cirrus@Austlit

'Sitting high in the John Golden Theatre on Broadway, the opening moments of Jeremy O Harris’s Slave Play leave me open-mouthed. A black woman, dressed simply and of another era – one might presume as a slave – enters the space with a broom. She is sweeping. After a moment, the song ‘Work’ by Rhianna starts to play. Loud and jaunty. The woman is aware of the music. She starts to enjoy it. She starts dancing, and twerking. We are in a mixed world. It is exciting and disorienting. She is interrupted by the arrival of a white man, scrawny, not a rich man, but holding power largely by the whip evident on his person.' (Introduction)

'What is this blur, whir of colour, this axe-grind-darkness? Nostalgia. Absence. This grief written along a curve, looping back and out, layered through time. Time is perhaps as Tomas Tranströmer offers not linear, but more a labyrinth, where you can press against the wall at the right spot to hear your past and future selves on the other side.' (Introduction)

'Merlinda Bobis is a poet first and foremost but her extensive body of work has transpired across novels, plays, performances, essays, and works for radio. A single dialogue between us can in no way capture her incredible writing, which is able to transcend borders in all their myriad and sometimes devastating forms. Yet, what I have aimed for in this interview is to showcase the mind of one of Australia’s most brilliant writers to date writing through her Filipino-Australian heritage in a time where the Filipino-Australian community has been vastly ignored and undervalued. As we live, love, and strive to survive together in a time of a global pandemic, I hope this dialogue reminds us how poetry moves through us and can be used as a tool to keep us together.' (Introduction)

'Lisa Robertson and I were introduced through my dear friend Marnie Slater following an invitation by Autumn Royal to undertake an interview for Cordite Poetry Review. I felt the need to be completely transparent with Lisa in stating that I’m artist working in moving image, that I’m not a writer by trade, and neither an expert on Lisa’s work. In fact, it was Marnie who introduced me to Lisa’s poetry, inviting me to a reading Lisa gave in Brussels in 2017. After this I bought three of her books at once, yet somehow, I found myself reading them slowly, over long durations of time and with some loyalty in finishing one publication before starting another. I felt curious about my own time with these publications, how in my focused and durational readings began to inform my life and thinking.' (Introduction)