Featured in
- Published 20240206
- ISBN: 978-1-922212-92-4
- Extent: 204pp
- Paperback, ePub, PDF, Kindle compatible
Already a subscriber? Sign in here
If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au
Share article
More from author
The shape of memory
I sit by the river searching for someone our national memory keepers sought to erase: my great-grandfather. Bundjalung man William Olive served across the Western Front in World War I. Aside from his digitised war record, the archives I have sought are almost silent. He enlisted when the Defence Act outlawed Aboriginal service. He suffered through two brutal offensives: the Somme and the Ypres Salient. He was wounded near Pozières in 1916, not far from this river in Amiens. William and I are separated by time and silence. But silence is a powerful act of agency. It can be revolutionary to hold your tongue, to refuse the container of words. Maybe a river can speak, but what if it, too, chooses silence?
More from this edition
Escaping the frame
In ConversationAll my work as a writer and activist over the last fifty years has comprised various attempts at what I call ‘escaping the frame of European colonisation, European story and European ways of telling story’.
Nothing ever lasts
Non-fictionBut I hate thinking of myself as the diversity hire. As I said, I’ve worked in the industry for over a decade. ‘I belong in this room,’ I told myself. I’m not a token – despite being called that so many times in my career that I’ve lost count. I’ve earned my place.
Walking through the mou(r)n(ing of a)tain(ted life)
Non-fictionMy big black cloak could probably keep me from freezing overnight. I remember a movie where a character smeared a layer of dirt over their body to stay warm. That would be my ‘break in case of emergency’ action…if my OCD will bury the anxiety of contamination for survival’s sake.
