Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 ‘We’re Not Truckin’ around’ : On and Off-road in Samuel Wagan Watson’s Smoke Encrypted Whispers
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'Cars and roads traverse the poetry of Samuel Wagan Watson, a self-identified Aboriginal man of Bundjalung, Birri Gubba, German and Irish ancestry. The narrator/s of the poems in Smoke Encrypted Whispers are repeatedly on the road or beside it, and driving is employed as a metaphor for everything from addiction and memory to the search for love. Road kill litters the poems, while roads come to life, cars become men, and men have ‘gas tanks that can’t see empty’. Watson’s poetry has received significant critical attention and acclaim: his ‘haunting, uncanny, layered poetics of history’ and depiction of ‘colonial degradation’ have been explored, and his poems—including those featuring cars and roads—have been analysed in relation to such themes as the sacred, locatedness, and creative processes. Given the extent to which cars and roads dominate Watson’s poetry, it is notable, however, that his use of both to explore and resist ‘colonial degradation’ has not received sustained attention.' (Introduction)

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  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Humanities Research vol. 17 no. 2 2011 23611874 2011 periodical issue 2011 pg. 109-119
Last amended 20 Dec 2021 11:29:52
109-119 ‘We’re Not Truckin’ around’ : On and Off-road in Samuel Wagan Watson’s Smoke Encrypted Whisperssmall AustLit logo Humanities Research
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