Category Archives: General comments

Racism and solidarity

Wiradjuri man and journalist Stan Grant’s speech at the end of Q&A on Monday night was deeply, deeply moving, a continuation of his truth-telling and grace as commentator and host. That his experience of racism for being an Indigenous person in the public eye is not singular but rather the norm for so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is beyond tragic. I am shamed and saddened by the treatment First Nations people receive on a regular, often daily, basis. And I am part of this, as part of this society founded on invasion and the embedded racism that supports it. I feel inadequate to comment on racism; while I have experienced sexism, I don’t have the daily experience of being targeted because of my race, and it is staggering to think that friends as well as strangers have lived with this all their lives. I condemn racism, not only in others but also in myself, as I try to become aware of the unconscious behaviours that mean I continue to presume on the privilege that is unmerited. I offer my support to Stan Grant and all my friends, colleagues and those I do not know who continue to suffer racist abuse for just being.

In solidarity and in hope for another way of being together with the kind of shared grace Stan Grant showed on Monday night.

Voice, Treaty, Truth – 2023

As the year unfolds toward the referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, I’d like to share some resources that I have found helpful.

from Uluru Statement Supporter Kit
The Statement

A trawloolway man from northern lutruwita (Tasmania), Rev Canon Dr Garry Deverell gives a very helpful lecture on the Uluru Statement and the design of the Voice.

from Yes23 resources

Professor Anne Pattel-Gray, a descendant of the Bidjara / Kari Kari people of Queensland and a celebrated Aboriginal leader, makes a powerful call to the churches to support a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.

Interview with Rev Canon Glenn Loughrey, ‘A Voice to Parliament, a voice to the church‘.
Glenn is a Wiradjuri man and a member of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anglican Council. He is also artist in residence at St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne. We are fortunate to have an artwork, Temptation with White Cockatoo by Glenn in our home.

The School of Indigenous Studies at the University of Divinity has a recommendations page: Voice, Treaty & Truth Resources.

As part of his Conversations at the Crossroads initiative, earlier this year Emeritus Professor Joe Camilleri organised a session on ‘Voice – Treaty – Truth Telling. What? When? How?’, with speakers Markus Stewart, First Peoples Assembly of Victoria, and Dr Tjanara Goreng Goreng.

To learn more and to support the Voice, see:

Sign up to the regular newsletter from Uluru Statement from the Heart: https://ulurustatement.org/

Consider signing up to act and educate through:

YES 23: https://yes23.com.au/

Together, Yes: https://togetheryes.com.au/

Introducing sun glint drift

sun glint drift is the website of Anne Elvey

Of English, Irish and Scottish settler descent, I live and work on Boonwurrung Country (alternatively spelt Boon Wurrung or Bunurong Country) in what is also known as Seaford, Victoria. I pay my respects to the elders past, present and future and recognise their continuing relation to and care for Country. I acknowledge that their sovereignty over these lands and waters has never been ceded.

‘sun glint drift’ was the title of a poem published in the Red Room Writing Water project. It is also the title I give this blog about my poetry and research.

IMG_1093I am a poet, editor and researcher with interests in ecological poetics, ecological feminist hermeneutics, ecological criticism, the material turn,  counter-colonial and decolonising ecological ethics, creative research practices, poetry and biblical literature.

My poetry publications include, Obligations of Voice (Recent Work Press 2021), On arrivals of breath (Poetica Christi 2019), White on White (Cordite Books 2018), and Kin (FIP 2014), shortlisted in the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards 2015.

In 2017-2018 I edited hope for whole: poets speak up to Adani.

My most recent scholarly book is Reading the Magnificat in Australia: Unsettling Engagements (Sheffield Phoenix 2020).

I was inaugural managing editor of Plumwood Mountain: An Australian Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics from 2013 to 2020.

Dr Anne Elvey

Announcement and Call for Expressions of Interest

Plumwood Mountain: An Australian Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics is in a time of transition. After 7 years, Managing Editor Anne Elvey will be stepping down at the end of 2020. At the same time the Editorial Board intends to deepen its commitments to decentring or deemphasising the human in ecopoetics while holding this vision in a wider frame of cultural responsibility both in  Australia and internationally. As part of our continuing affirmation of more-than-human agencies, of intersections between environmental activism and cultures of poetry, and of the complex entanglements of race, gender, sexuality, location and class in an emerging ecopoetics, the journal wants to expand its editorial board to reflect these commitments. As part of this development, the new Managing Editor has the option to find a new name for the journal.

Expressions of interest are called for a Managing Editor and Editorial Administration Team that would with an Editorial Board shape the future of the journal and undertake the tasks of bringing it to publication. These are voluntary positions.

Further details: https://plumwoodmountain.com/2020/07/23/managing-editor-and-editorial-administration-team-call-for-expressions-of-interest/

Poetry Reading 17 March 2020

I was to read as one of four featured poets at La Mama Poetica this evening. The three co-featuring poets were to be David Stavanger, Anisa Nandaula and Jocelyn Deane. I was looking forward to the event, as I suspect were all four of us. But I am relieved that, wisely, La Mama cancelled the event, with the hope that this is a postponement to a better time. The decision was made to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in Australia. In solidarity, I have made this recording of poems I might have read tonight. My thanks to Amanda Anastasi for the invitation to read at La Mama.

The poems I read in this video are titled:

‘Night Gusts with House and Flowering Gum’, forthcoming in Island

‘Things fall away’ published in Overland

‘Called up’ published in Not Very Quiet

‘Prelude to a voice’ published in my collection White on White (Cordite Books, 2018), available from the author (afelvey@gmail.com) or Cordite Publishing

‘Cinders’ published in my collection Kin (Five Islands Press, 2014) available from the author (afelvey@gmail.com)

‘The sense is porous to the thing’ published in my collection On arrivals of breath (Poetica Christi Press, 2019) available from the author (afelvey@gmail.com) or from Poetica Christi Press

‘Earth Interview in the Anthropocene’ published in Rabbit and hope for whole: Poets speak up to Adani

‘Grasp’ forthcoming in Verity La

David Stavanger’s new book Case Notes is available from UWAP

Anisa Nandaula’s Melanin Garden is available from Anita Nandaula

Jocelyn Deane’s The Second Person is available from Girls on Key

Coming in October: On arrivals of breath

OnArrivalsofBreath-Cover

My new poetry collection, On arrivals of breath, is forthcoming from Poetica Christi Press in October 2019. Copies can be purchased directly from me at $20 plus postage. To pre-order, please email: afelvey@gmail.com and an invoice will be issued closer to the date of publication. Payment methods are Paypal or EFT.

A Melbourne launch by Dorothy A Lee is on Tuesday 15 October 2019, 5.30 for 6.00pm. Email afelvey@gmail.com for details. Poets Susan Fealy, E A Gleeson and Rose Lucas will read on the theme of breath.

A Sydney launch by Peter Boyle is on Tuesday 22 October 2019, 6.00 for 6.30pm. Email afelvey@gmail.com for details. Poets Michael Aiken, Anne Casey and Tricia Dearborn will read on the theme of breath.

Poets John Foulcher and E A Gleeson have offered generous recommendations. My gratitude to them both:

recommendations from back cover.jpg

 

Coming up in 2019

I am looking forward to this conference in April 2019. The committee, chaired by Joseph Camilleri and of which I am part, has lots to do between now and then, but it will be worth it. More information can be found here: http://vox.divinity.edu.au/event/earth-peace-conference/ and bookings can be made here: https://www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=432955&

Early bird rates are available until early February 2019.

The conference brings together Indigenous speakers, ecological feminists, international specialists in non violence and peace, scholars and activists, to revision discourse and policy toward a Just and Ecologically Sustainable Peace.

 Earth %40 Peace - flyer - web (3).jpg