'Dirty Words, an A to Z index of poetry, is a restless offering; an unfolding that may begin on any page. This to-ing and fro-ing of observation is an un-binding of sorts; a mournful rage with beauty and deep love between the lines to disrupt and transcend the pain and disdain. This book is a reminder that what is (re)produced and (re)presented for general consumption, by institutions of power, is often steeped in myth-making and persistent colonial ideology. This small contemplation on nation and history is informed by blood-memory and an uncanny knowing beyond what we are officially told; a reminder of multiple lived-histories, of other ways of knowing and being in this world. Our elders and ancestors fought for the right to exist and speak up into the future – there are traces and signs, and there was always resistance. Dirty Words is my ‘note-to-self’ to speak up, to unsettle and to be brave; to not be silent when another voice would be easier or expected. There is still work to be done, and difficult conversations to have. Hidden stories can be honoured, exposed and shared, and there is always poetry.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'In their introduction to the Macquarie/ PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Anita Heiss and Peter Minter discern that Aboriginal writing has been in the "foreground of a renewed and particularly successful resistance to state authority" (4). They cite We Are Going by Oodgeroo Noonuccal as emblematic of an activist literature that is directed to her own community as well as a mainstream audience. Heiss and Minter situate Noonuccal's writing within the context of resistance literature, a genre which blurs creative and critical genres in being underwritten by "imperatives of radical critique, political action, and social change" (Harlow 2). Just over fifty years later, Narungga writer Natalie Harkin's installation art and first major poetry collection Dirty Words follows and extends Oodgeroo's lead. Just as Oodgeroo was partly influenced by the 1960s Black Rights Movement, Harkin's literary activism is shaped by Black feminism of the 1970s and by First Nations movements from around the world. Harkin views herself is part of an intimate conversation between those that seek to make "meaning in worlds steeped in histories of shared deep colonialisms" ("For You, K. Tsianina Lomawaima" 270).
'Sara Ahmed analyses the construction of the national ideal, conceiving of nationhood as a formation dependent on the stickiness of an ideal-image informed by complex individual and collective physic processes. In this article, I focus on the Narungga poet, artist, and scholar Natalie Harkin’s debut collection of poems, Dirty Words, through the lens of Ahmed’s work on the socialisation of affect to argue that Harkin’s poetics stage an intervention on national numbness (a consequence, in part, of Australia’s traumatic establishment as a penal colony) and Australia’s Anglo-centric national ideal. I examine Harkin’s challenge to those who continue to fly the traumatising, colonising flag and her witnessing to transgenerational trauma in the post-invasion context, showing how her testimony confronts the denial and division entrenched in the national ideal, past and present. Harkin’s mediation contributes to a burgeoning First Nations poetics in Australia that demands recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ experience and knowledge, and calls for justice, accountability, reflection, and response from non-Indigenous Australians.' (Publication abstract)
'Do you read Australia’s First Nations (Indigenous) writers? If not, why not? People read for many reasons: information, entertainment, escape, to contemplate in company, to be moved. Reading can also be a political act, an act of solidarity, an expression of willingness to listen and to learn from others with radically different histories and lives.' (Introduction)
'Just one of the many really interesting trails that thread through the seeming wilds of Australian poetry over the last two or so decades (cripes, has it been that long?) is the slow, constant morphing one of Cordite. Sydney poets Adrian Wiggins and Peter Minter, founders of Cordite Poetry and Poetics Review, launched their first issue in 1997. After five issues in a broadsheet format and an oscillating editorship that included Margaret Cronin and Jennifer Kremmer, the editorship was handed over in 2005 to David Prater, whose key innovation was to appoint guest editors for mini- and, later, entire issues.'
(Introduction)
'Do you read Australia’s First Nations (Indigenous) writers? If not, why not? People read for many reasons: information, entertainment, escape, to contemplate in company, to be moved. Reading can also be a political act, an act of solidarity, an expression of willingness to listen and to learn from others with radically different histories and lives.' (Introduction)
'Sara Ahmed analyses the construction of the national ideal, conceiving of nationhood as a formation dependent on the stickiness of an ideal-image informed by complex individual and collective physic processes. In this article, I focus on the Narungga poet, artist, and scholar Natalie Harkin’s debut collection of poems, Dirty Words, through the lens of Ahmed’s work on the socialisation of affect to argue that Harkin’s poetics stage an intervention on national numbness (a consequence, in part, of Australia’s traumatic establishment as a penal colony) and Australia’s Anglo-centric national ideal. I examine Harkin’s challenge to those who continue to fly the traumatising, colonising flag and her witnessing to transgenerational trauma in the post-invasion context, showing how her testimony confronts the denial and division entrenched in the national ideal, past and present. Harkin’s mediation contributes to a burgeoning First Nations poetics in Australia that demands recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ experience and knowledge, and calls for justice, accountability, reflection, and response from non-Indigenous Australians.' (Publication abstract)
'In their introduction to the Macquarie/ PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Anita Heiss and Peter Minter discern that Aboriginal writing has been in the "foreground of a renewed and particularly successful resistance to state authority" (4). They cite We Are Going by Oodgeroo Noonuccal as emblematic of an activist literature that is directed to her own community as well as a mainstream audience. Heiss and Minter situate Noonuccal's writing within the context of resistance literature, a genre which blurs creative and critical genres in being underwritten by "imperatives of radical critique, political action, and social change" (Harlow 2). Just over fifty years later, Narungga writer Natalie Harkin's installation art and first major poetry collection Dirty Words follows and extends Oodgeroo's lead. Just as Oodgeroo was partly influenced by the 1960s Black Rights Movement, Harkin's literary activism is shaped by Black feminism of the 1970s and by First Nations movements from around the world. Harkin views herself is part of an intimate conversation between those that seek to make "meaning in worlds steeped in histories of shared deep colonialisms" ("For You, K. Tsianina Lomawaima" 270).
