The Peter Porter Prize is a literary prize for a new poem run by the Australian Book Review. It's an annual prize, running since 2005. It's worth a total of $9,000. This year, the judges – John Hawke, Bronwyn Lea, and Philip Mead – have shortlisted five poems. The winner will be announced on 16th January. For anyone living in Melbourne, the award night is a free night where the shortlisted poets will present their poems to the audience in the led up the announcement.
The Longlist and Shortlist:
- Lachlan Brown (NSW), 'Precision Signs' – Shortlisted
- Claire G. Coleman (Vic.), 'That Wadjela Tongue' – Shortlisted
- Diane Fahey (Vic.), 'The Yellow Room' – Longlisted
- S.J. Finn (Vic.), 'A Morning Shot' – Longlisted
- Ross Gillett (Vic.), 'South Coast Sonnets' – Shortlisted
- A. Frances Johnson (Vic.), 'My Father's Thesaurus' – Shortlisted
- Anthony Lawrence (QLD), 'Zoologistics' – Longlisted
- Kathryn Lyster (NSW), 'Diana' – Longlisted
- Julie Manning (QLD), 'Constellation of Bees' – Shortlisted
- Greg McLaren (NSW), 'Autumn mediations' – Longlisted
- Claire Potter (United Kingdom), 'Of Birds' Feet' – Longlisted
- Gig Ryan (Vic.), 'Fortune's Favours' – Longlisted
- Corey Wakeling (Japan), 'Drafts in Red' – Longlisted
All five shortlisted poems can be found here at the Australian Book Review.
I was particularly struck by Coleman's poem, That Wadjela Tongue, and I hope you take the time to duck over to read all five.
But for today, I will share one of Coleman's earlier poems.
I Am the Road | Claire G Coleman
Highly commended for the 2018 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize.
My grandfather was the bush, the coast, salmon gums, hakeas, blue-grey banskias
Wind-whipped water, tea-black estuaries, sun on grey stone
My grandfather was born on Country, was buried on Country
His bones are Country
I am the road.
I was born off Country, in that city
I hear, less than two-weeks old I travelled Country
A bassinet on the back seat of the Kingswood
I remember travels more than I remember a home
I am the road.
My father is the beach, the peppermint tree, the city back when, before it was a city
My father is the ancient tall-tree country, between his father Country and that town
My father is World War II, his father was a soldier
My father wandered, worked on rail, drove trucks
I am the road
Campgrounds up and down that coast were the childhood home of my heart
Where my memories fled, where my happiness lived
Campgrounds in somebody else’s stolen country
I am the road
The road unrolls before me
My rusty old troopy wipes oily sweat from its underside on the asphalt
Says ‘I am here, I am here’
The engine breathes in, breathes out, pants faster than I can
Sings a wailing thundering song
Wraps its steel self around me and keeps me safe, a too large overcoat
I am the road
I slept, for a time, on the streets of Melbourne
No country, no home, as faceless as the pavement
I was dirt on the streets, as grey as the stone, as the concrete
I am the road
We showed explorers where the water was
They lay their road over our path, from water to water
Lay a highway over their road, tamed my country with their highway
I am the road
My Boodja has been stolen, raped, they dug it up, took some of it away
They killed our boorn, killed our yonga, our waitch, damar, kwoka
Put in wheat and sheep, no country for sheep my Boodja
My Country, most it is empty, the whitefellas have no use for it
Except to keep it from us
Because we want it back, need it back, because they can
I am the road.
People ask where I am from, I cannot, simply answer
To mob, I am Noongar, South Coast. I am Banksias, wind on waves on stone
To travellers, whitefella nomads, I am from where I live – that caravan over there
To whitefellas from Melbourne who see how I drink my coffee
I must be from Melbourne, I am not Melbourne
I am the road
One day wish to, hope to, dream, buy some of my grandfather’s country back
Pay the thieves for stolen goods
Theft is a crime, receiving stolen goods is a crime
Until one day
I am the road.
Claire G. Coleman is a Wirlomin Noongar woman whose ancestral country is on the south coast of Western Australia. She has written two novels, Terra Nullius and The Old Lie.
I think of Coleman, and Kim Scott, when I'm down that way. Sandhills bound by accacia scrub - look up Fitzgerald River National Park - country that is really marginal for wheat farming, just getting by on coastal showers. I don't know the history of land rights in that area, but "My Country, most it is empty, the whitefellas have no use for it/Except to keep it from us" makes you think, doesn't it.
ReplyDeleteBill H.
It certainly does. It was the line that caught my attention too.
DeleteI hope you read That Wadjela Tongue too Bill, it was powerful -
DeleteWords are weapons and those colonisers have disarmed me; they have stolen
The language from my family; killed who still spoke it and
Stilled the Country’s breath – that wants to pour
From my tongue; They banned the speaking of language, made people
Too scared to speak, frightened the breath from them. I cannot
Speak the sacred words of country, I cannot speak to my love of
My ancestors; the bones in the land, the land
In my bones; in the language they understand.
Very nice!
ReplyDelete