'Phillip Hall writes from the edge: the edge of language; the edge of mental illness; and, from the perspective of a non-Indigenous poet and teacher standing at the edge of Indigenous culture and community carrying generosity and love alongside the ongoing trauma of dispossession. This is a volume intensely interested in language and the self-care required in precarious lives.' (Publication summary)
Author's note:
Singing with the
Yanyawa, Marra, Gudanji & Garrwa
of
Borroloola,
in the Northern Territory's
Gulf of Carpentaria
Dedication:
And in loving memory of
Nana Miller (nee Raggett):
proud Custodian of Gudanji Culture,
Traditional Owner of McArthur River Station,
Jungkayi for Jayipa (Catfish Hole),
my teacher -
there is so much Sorry Business
'In his introduction to Fume, a collection of poetry primarily written on Country in Borroloola, Phillip Hall describes his struggle to accept the challenge of Gudanji elder Nana Miller ‘to embrace enough humility to accept that not all complications were easily navigable’ (18). Hall presents himself as having been at times ‘a missionary and a misfit’ (16) and an idealist (15); ‘interactions with spirits and magic’ offer ‘a potent challenge to my secular humanism’ (96), and his poem ‘Discharge’ seems to bluntly lay out some (old) underlying drives...' (Introduction)
'In his introduction to Fume, a collection of poetry primarily written on Country in Borroloola, Phillip Hall describes his struggle to accept the challenge of Gudanji elder Nana Miller ‘to embrace enough humility to accept that not all complications were easily navigable’ (18). Hall presents himself as having been at times ‘a missionary and a misfit’ (16) and an idealist (15); ‘interactions with spirits and magic’ offer ‘a potent challenge to my secular humanism’ (96), and his poem ‘Discharge’ seems to bluntly lay out some (old) underlying drives...' (Introduction)
