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17 - Not the Poem Alone

In Medias Res

from Part IV - Embodied Poetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  aN Invalid Date NaN

Ann Vickery
Affiliation:
Deakin University, Victoria
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Summary

This chapter argues that ecopoetry is too easily absorbed back into the logics of capitalism and colonialism. Aware of the delimiting forces surrounding its own context, the chapter argues to be taken not as an essay but as an action. It argues that for a poem to bring about environmental change, it must be part of connected interventions. The chapter outlines the poetic yarning between John Kinsella and Charmaine Papertalk Green, a member of the Wajarri, Badimaya, and Nhanagardi people of the Yamaji Nation, as a means of generative protest. It also provides an example of poems written in medias res in the collective resistance to a proposal to build bike trails on Walwalinj, a mountain sacred to the Ballardong Noongar people. This example demonstrates a poem is shaped by the particular situation and how the poem is one part of a network of actions that formed a campaign that was led by Aboriginal elders. The chapter also includes collaborative poetry written during the Roe 8 Highway protests in 2016 and poetry protesting the proposed destruction of the Julimar Forest by mining companies.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Hughes-D’Aeth, Tony. “Can Poetry Stop a Highway? Wielding Words in the Battle over Roe 8.” The Conversation, 11 January 2017. https://theconversation.com/can-poetry-stop-a-highway-wielding-words-in-the-battle-over-roe-8-71005.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John. Divine Comedy: Journeys through a Regional Geography. University of Queensland Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John. Polysituatedness. Manchester University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John. Beyond Ambiguity. Manchester University Press, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinsella, John. Collected Poems Volume Two (2005–2014): Harsh Hakea. UWA Publishing, 2023.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John. “The Argonautica I Am Re-envisaging and Will Eventually Try to Forget, as I Should?” Meanjin, March 2023. https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-argonautica-i-am-re-envisaging-and-will-eventually-try-to-forget-as-i-should/.Google Scholar
Kinsella, John and Quinton, J. P.. The Other Report: Poems against the Destruction of the Beeliar Wetlands. Shed Under the Mountain Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Papertalk Green, Charmaine and Kinsella, John. False Claims of Colonial Thieves. Magabala Books, 2018.Google Scholar
Slessor, Kenneth. “North Country.” Five Bells: XX Poems. Frank Johnson, 1939, pp. 3031.Google Scholar
Slessor, Kenneth. “South Country.” Five Bells: XX Poems. Frank Johnson, 1939, p. 32.Google Scholar
Slessor, Kenneth. “Beach Burial.” Southerly vol.5 no.3, 1944, p. 13.Google Scholar
Winmar, Dorothy. Walwalinj: The Hill That Cries. Quik Printing Services, 1996.Google Scholar

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