On not writing poetry


On reading Bonney, on reading Faulkner, on reading Fanon, on reading Mieville read Marx at my desk while listening to Fisher on Audible tell me ‘those who can’t remember the past are condemned to have it resold to them forever’ and then rewatching again again that scene where the dead friend says she will take the displaced surplus of love that grief leaves for us to swallow for herself, the room a tender glow from steampunk LEDs I splurged on at the reconstructed crude oil store with money I was paid for poems howling to the dead, on spilling fake wine across every restless urgent vital document I’m yet to read, on the citational praxis of begging him to stay in this world forever, on and against the commonwealth, in and against the violence of language hidden in the books they never wanted the dirty hoarding masses to read, on the power of states to misremember us how we learnt the things that kill them, on the black cockatoos rising from the still-swamped scrub, on the humming nostalgia of the screen as my lofi-beats-to-study-to-wife turns her gaze to the moon, on her place too against the wall as we condemn those who attempt to resell us peace forever, on the things we gave to the fire, things we lost to the flood, on the earned necessity of revolution as the only way we have to forgive ourselves, the ghosts we disappointed, on the haunting that is the only thing left to do, burning evening light through bare branches of trees that don’t belong in this land, on the arrangement of electricity required to memorialise you, against the dead centre of this poem, on the names I swore to take with me.

 

A banner that reads Subscriberthon - November 4-11 - subscribe, donate or renew to WIM

Evelyn Araluen

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, researcher and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal. Her Stella-prize winning poetry collection DROPBEAR was published by UQP in 2021. She lectures in Literature and Creative Writing at Deakin University.

More by Evelyn Araluen ›

Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places.

If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate.


Related articles & Essays