AustLit
Alternative title:
Work Werk Work
Issue Details:
First known date:
2017...
no.
30
June
2017
of
Peril : An Asian-Australian Journal
est. 2006
Peril : An Asian-Australian Journal
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Latest Issues
Notes
-
Only literary material by within AustLit's scope individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
- After Rana Plaza Fell by UK writer, Sadaf Saaz
- A review of the exhibition HerPlace: Women in the West by Karen Schamberger
Contents
* Contents derived from the 2017 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
-
My Family Is One of Workers,
single work
essay
'My family is one of workers. Over the years, Mum has told me countless stories of her own childhood: crouching in the dirt to feed worms to the family ducks, sweeping the floor of the family grocery store in search of a glint of loose change, helping my Po Po peel enough vegetables to feed her family of seven.' (Introduction)
- Don’t Give the Lazy Immigrant Flowersi"The world is full; you and I are just strangers.", single work poetry
-
The Needle or the Knife,
single work
prose
'On a plane from Brisbane to Sydney, I read Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth to convince myself getting Botox was a stupid idea. Mostly, I wanted to understand my self-critical thought patterns and compulsive behaviours surrounding “beauty labour”. There are several physical features I dislike about myself that I consistently work hard to improve or manage: body, skin, hair, just to name a few. Was the amount of time and money I poured into beauty regimes going to increase as I got older?' (Introduction)
- Tidei"That morning in spring I’d thought", single work poetry
- August, Pomeloi"The pomelo is not a grapefruit.", single work poetry
- Kumerai"Wrap whole sweet potatoes,", single work poetry
-
The Way Things Work : Writing, Diversity, Australia,
single work
essay
'Hard work is etched in my bones. I see it in my mother’s restless hands, the way she jiggles her knees or bites her fingernails when she sits down to rest. I saw it in the spotlessness of both my grandmothers’ houses – in the way that they never sat down until everything around them was pristine. As much as I long for the order of these houses, I have learned to sit in the chaos of my home and look only at the screen or book in front of me. But the restlessness has stayed with me. I check work emails both earlier and later than I should. I work early in the morning and later in the evening. Before I had a child, my ideal working hours would have been roughly 8am to 7pm. I’ve been forced to truncate my hours into more or less 9 to 5ish, squeezing in extra hours when I can.' (Introduction)
-
Dear Xuan,
single work
prose
'Dear Xuan,
'I write this letter to you my daughter in this old fashioned way on hard copy so it cannot be altered or deleted from a distance. You are now eighteen and you deserve to know the truth from your mother and your mother’s mother about the peace in our time.' (Introduction)
-
Work Unquietly,
single work
essay
'Lately, I’ve been sending work to a friend of mine. A new friend, a poet whose feedback I trust. After a while she said to me, ‘How come you keep using words ‘little’, ‘quiet’, ‘small’?’ I said I didn’t know why, that I had started and it stuck.' (Introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 8 Jun 2017 11:12:23
Common subjects:
Export this record