'A unique experience. A novel in 'spindle' sonnets. A drama. An impassioned cry for a beautiful and stolen world under threat. A 'protester' who has been living in a shallow cave in the limestone cliff in front of Bathers Beach under the colonial Round House prison in Fremantle is arrested for demonstrating against the late 80's visit of the nuclear-armed 7th Fleet. In the cells the 'protester' witnesses police violence and threatens to tell what they have seen. An act of declaration becomes entangled with what is happening outside the cells. This haunting incantation looks back before and after these events, to the present day. The sea, the coast around Fremantle, the 'Scarp', all come into play in a work that attempts to decolonise the space, to contest nuclear, military and colonial power without claiming any rights over country.' (Publication summary)
'What might thinking with specific waters, and particular watery forms, bring to our understandings of how literature comes to mean? Taking cues from recent work in both the Blue Humanities – inspired by Pacific scholars – and the posthumanities, this article considers examples of recent writing in order to explore what is revealed when focus shifts to the aqueous. What ‘transversal alliances’ (Braidotti) and concomitant limitations are highlighted in writings and readings that take account of water? Thinking with a peculiarly Australian form of fluvial geomorphology – the chain of ponds – I consider four recent texts: John Kinsella’s 'Cellnight'; Natalie Harkin’s ‘Cultural Precinct’; Tony Birch’s The White Girl, and Christos Tsiolkas’s 7½. Thinking with the chain of ponds reveals aspects of ‘hydrocolonialisms’ (Hofmeyr) and immersive ontologies. While all waters are revealed to be operating within the multiple restrictions of the nation state together with anthropogenic climate emergency, a focus on waters reveals possibilities of renewal as well as human and more-than-human connections. Taking this beyond the island continent to trans-Pacific links, I also consider the ways such connections are joyfully celebrated in Lisa Reihana’s indigifuturist video work Groundloop.' (Publication abstract)
'This verse novel weaves disparate themes together into a cohesive whole, including anti-nuclear protests in 1980s Western Australia and the ill treatment of (Indigenous) prisoners.'
'In the late 1980s, American nuclear-armed warships visit Perth, prompting impassioned protest from a wide array of people, including the narrator of John Kinsella’s verse novel Cellnight. After a brief prologue, they recall what they have seen and experienced. The waves of questions begin: “Who will / remember”. These rhetorical questions reverberate throughout the book and into the present.' (Publication summary)
'In the late 1980s, American nuclear-armed warships visit Perth, prompting impassioned protest from a wide array of people, including the narrator of John Kinsella’s verse novel Cellnight. After a brief prologue, they recall what they have seen and experienced. The waves of questions begin: “Who will / remember”. These rhetorical questions reverberate throughout the book and into the present.' (Publication summary)
'This verse novel weaves disparate themes together into a cohesive whole, including anti-nuclear protests in 1980s Western Australia and the ill treatment of (Indigenous) prisoners.'
'What might thinking with specific waters, and particular watery forms, bring to our understandings of how literature comes to mean? Taking cues from recent work in both the Blue Humanities – inspired by Pacific scholars – and the posthumanities, this article considers examples of recent writing in order to explore what is revealed when focus shifts to the aqueous. What ‘transversal alliances’ (Braidotti) and concomitant limitations are highlighted in writings and readings that take account of water? Thinking with a peculiarly Australian form of fluvial geomorphology – the chain of ponds – I consider four recent texts: John Kinsella’s 'Cellnight'; Natalie Harkin’s ‘Cultural Precinct’; Tony Birch’s The White Girl, and Christos Tsiolkas’s 7½. Thinking with the chain of ponds reveals aspects of ‘hydrocolonialisms’ (Hofmeyr) and immersive ontologies. While all waters are revealed to be operating within the multiple restrictions of the nation state together with anthropogenic climate emergency, a focus on waters reveals possibilities of renewal as well as human and more-than-human connections. Taking this beyond the island continent to trans-Pacific links, I also consider the ways such connections are joyfully celebrated in Lisa Reihana’s indigifuturist video work Groundloop.' (Publication abstract)
