Smoke Encrypted Whispers

labelled

the doctors probed

while I persisted stamping my hooves

on the cold floor of the locked ward

“Mr Watson … you don’t eat grass!”

“Crap!” I flared.

Hooves tap, clop, tok, tap…

“Molasses, salt tablets. Now!” I snarled.

“Mr Watson … why these antics?!”

“Let me out of here … I’m a winner … I have a Cup to win!”

“Mr Watson … you’re not a race horse … you’re a human being!”

Oh yeah?

all my life I’ve been under some kind of label -

full blood?

half blood…

half breed!

half caste -

and even questioned about being

a quadroon

well

with magnificent bloodlines like that

I decided

I must be a godddamned pedigree of some sort!

Remembering My First Love

Growing up white in Australia I did not have much opportunity to read black literature. I did not read much outside the school curriculum. There are two very influential books for all Australian kids of my generation, and that is Looking For Alibrandi, by Melina Marchetta; and Tomorrow When The War Began, by John Marsden. And thinking back over that time in my life – I cannot remember being encouraged to read much of anything else that was Australian.

I read a lot of British, or American authors. Cannot argue about studying the greats of literature from Shakespeare to F. Scott Fitzgerald. From Virginia Woolf to Emily Dickinson. In terms of black literature, I was reading African-American authors such as Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.

Then, I leave school and I enter a ‘phase’ of sorts where I had to read Australian authors, only. I started with the obvious Bryce Courtenay and Thomas Keneally.

Eventually, I expanded into literature written by Aboriginal authors. And Samuel Wagan Watson is the first Indigenous author I read.

His poetry is flawless – in my eyes. Falling in love with Samuel Wagan Watson changed my life by changing my attitude towards black literature. He is the first of many that have enriched my soul.

For further readings in literature, I recommend Alexis Wright. And for further readings in poetry, I recommend Oodgeroo Noonuccal (if you cannot get a hold of Samuel Wagan Watson).

After 2 a.m.

I wept along with the night

two

black

hideous dimensions -

myself and 3 a.m.

releasing a crystal tide of bottled insanity

while the shadows mocked

our embrace

and from then on

I knew that forever

night

would be my mistress

Learning New Forms Of Poetry

Before I picked up Samuel Wagan Watson I was familiar with free verse along with the older, structured forms like sonnets, etc. I know e e cummings did some experimental writings by moving the text along the page to create specific shapes for the reader.

But I had never encountered poetry that was in the form of a block of text. This visual form of poetry is called a Square Poem. I have taken a scan of the poem aunty grey smoke because I am not confident I can format the text correctly, as it is meant to be read.

I have read a few reader reviews that when a poem is tightly structured in a block, it is not real poetry. Apparently, it becomes prose. I disagree. If lines can be spaciously moved to engage the whole page, then the lines can also be tightly packed while engaging the whole page.

Or, in other words, if a white guy like e e cummings can format his poetry to the sound of a grasshopper, then a black writer like Samuel Wagan Watson can format his poetry into whatever he damn well pleases.

My reading of aunty grey smoke is the square represents a colonising city block of the city street the aunty walks along.

My Favourite Poem From My First Love

the writer’s suitcase

it spilled out onto the bitumen

like the bursting stomach of a consumed beast

the writer’s black suitcase

bleeding onto the pavement

where he fell for the last time

and the black moths within escaped

fled for cover in the light they’d been deprived of

witnesses and prisoners unto his pain

secrets into the wind

onlookers gasping in shock

the writer in a ball of terror

his state exposed to the world

and little immortality to come of anything

light shining on the darkest of journeys in the suitcase

nights of drunken ramblings

where the writer fell lower than ever

body convulsing

thoughts fleeing the open air

pages scatter amongst the breeze

the writer dies lying in a pool of is words

a mess of lies and truths

a crowd of condemnation and little comfort

finally a spectacle of his art

the art in dying alone

an external soul of tattered black cardboard

picked up in the ruthless breeze of the city

he dies like his ideas

in a bundle on the sidewalk

where the children find his writings in the gutter

and laugh them off as discarded letters of love

the writer’s suitcase I typed out, over fifteen years ago, and had it pinned to my office wall. I’m not sure where or when I lost it. I think I will print it out again and put it right where I can see it.

An Interview With Samuel Wagan Watson

A Personal Thank You To Samuel Wagan Watson

A huge thank you. You have printed only one book, which I have bent, stained with coffee, and dog-eared to my heart's content. But your one book has been a gateway for me into other Indigenous poetry, and from there into Indigenous literature - which I find far superior to many hyped-up 'mainstream' authors.

Thank you for doing what you do. Sincerely.