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'This important anthology, curated by Gomeroi poet and academic Alison Whittaker, showcases Australia’s most-respected First Nations poets alongside some of the rising stars. Featured poets include Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Ruby Langford Ginibi, Ellen van Neerven, Tony Birch, Claire G. Coleman, Evelyn Araluen, Jack Davis, Kevin Gilbert, Lionel Fogarty, Sam Wagan Watson, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Archie Roach and Alexis Wright.
'Divided into five thematic sections, each one is introduced by an essay from a leading Aboriginal writer and thinker — Bruce Pascoe, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Chelsea Bond, Evelyn Araluen and Steven Oliver — who reflects on the power of First Nations poetry with their own original contribution. This incredible book is a testament to the renaissance of First Nations poetry happening in Australia right now.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Teaching Resources
This work has teaching resources.
Contents
-
Introduction,
single work
essay
(p. ix-xiv)'It licks at the edges of the colonisers' language. It hems it into a workable, imperfect shape. It tears through the settlers' plantations, their arrangements of the trees and their form. It takes its restorative heat to the right flora, which release their seeds and bear down hard for the burn. It loosens and enriches nutrients from the top of the ecology. It brings them down to bring other things up. Fire Front, a thin and precise incision into the colonial Australian imagination, is ready when the wind changes. When the wind changes, everything that is burning becomes the front. Big. Bigger and more powerful than we could have ever envisioned.' (Introduction)
- Dear Ancestor, single work essay (p. 3-8)
-
Hey, Ancestor!,
single work
prose
(p. 9-14)
'Hey ancestor, you talking to me?
'Country time everyday.
'I know, I know, but wouldn’t you know it, it’s the 26th of January again, old Whitefella Day.
'Party time for some, sad day for others.'
- Beautiful Yuroke Red River Gumi"Sometimes the red river gums rustled", single work poetry (p. 15-16)
- The Colour of Massacrei"As a new century dawned white Australians were urged", single work poetry (p. 17-18)
- Unearthi"let's dig up the soil and excavate the past", single work poetry (p. 19)
- Domestici"The great need in dealing with the girls", single work poetry (p. 20-22)
-
Took the Children Awayi"This story's right, this story's true",
single work
lyric/song
(p. 23-25)
'Although not the first song about the enforced separation of Indigenous children from their families, Archie Roach’s song, based on his own life and experience, was released at a time when there was increasing public focus on the Stolen Generations. The significance of the song also resonated outside the Indigenous community with Roach winning ARIA Awards for Best Indigenous Release and Best New Talent in 1991. Took the Children Away received an international Human Rights Achievement Award, the first time that the award had been bestowed on a songwriter.'
Source: NFSA (https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/took-children-away-archie-roach). Sighted: 21/02/2019)
- The Children Came Backi"I'm Fitzroy where the stars be", single work lyric/song (p. 26-28)
- Yuya Karraburai"I'm standing by this fire", single work poetry (p. 29-32)
- Bilya Kepi"Nitja ngulla bilya-kep koorliny.", single work poetry (p. 33)
- Black Womani"I am every black woman who's ever been loved.", single work poetry (p. 35)
- A Letter to the Shade of Charles Darwini"We sincerely wish to thank you", single work poetry (p. 35-36)
-
Too Little, Too Much,
single work
essay
(p. 39-45)'Aboriginal poetics have always existed. Or, at least, they fulfil every sense of always that we have access to: yaburuhma, the kind of eternal that spirals out a constant across time and space; forever, the kind of promise we make to spread between every time. Since the land, since the land made us shape, since the land gave us voice, since we had learned enough to inscribe it back, since we took up tools tossed here by the uninvited. We sing it back as it is sung back to us in every bird song, every branch ache, every wave heave. The form has changed, as have we, but the songlines still hum in the soil while we read and write upon it.' (Introduction)
- The Grounding Sentencei"It has been an eternity of dispersal, Knowledge, secret and", single work poetry (p. 46-48)
- Caused Us to Be Collaboratori"Their minds in times is what rhymes", single work poetry (p. 49-52)
- Connoisseuri"They are excursionist on our culture", single work poetry (p. 53-54)
- Darkinjung Burningi"begin with a circle facing a fire aunty", single work poetry (p. 55-56)
-
Many Girls White Lineni"no mist no mystery",
single work
poetry
(p. 55-56)Judges Report : In Alison Whittaker’s ‘MANY GIRLS WHITE LINEN’, which placed equal first, the plight of First Nations peoples is front and centre. Through its torsional rhymes and rhythms, the poem eviscerates the iconic whiteness of Picnic at Hanging Rock and stuns with its own iconic imagery: ‘amongst gums collecting grit / where blak girls hang / nails’. The poem is, to quote Whittaker, ‘raw rousing horrifying’.
- Municipal Gumi"Gumtree in the city street,", single work poetry (p. 59)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
'The Whole Canon Is Being Reappraised': How the #MeToo Movement Upended Australian Poetry
2021
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 4 April 2021; 'Poets and publishers say a surge of new writing has followed the movement, profoundly changing Australian letters in sometimes unexpected ways' -
[Review] Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: StylusLit , March no. 9 2021;
— Review of Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020 anthology poetry essay'Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today is an anthology of poetry and essays edited by the Gomeroi poet and academic Alison Whittaker. It should prove an indispensable addition to the canon of First Nations poetry. This new anthology may take its cue from the seminal work edited by Kevin Gilbert, Inside Black Australia: An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry. Gilbert’s anthology was published in 1988 – the year the country marked its bicentennial of colonial rule with colourful advertisements featuring the jingle, “Celebration of a nation.” One of the aims of the anthology was to disrupt the notion of celebration.'(Introduction)
-
In Times Like These, What Would Oodgeroo Do? On the Influence Of Aboriginal Poet, Activist And Educator Oodgeroo Noonuccal
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: The Monthly , December no. 173 2020; (p. 22-28) 'Oodgeroo Noonuccal is widely acknowledged as a distinguished poet of determination and brilliance. She was also one of the heroes of the Aboriginal struggle for justice in the 1960s, known for her work as an activist, educator and public speaker. Her poetry educated Australians – and people throughout the world – on the plight of Aboriginal people. And she triumphantly let the world know through her poetry that the Australian style was not hers. In “Not My Style”, she yearned for a new time in this country: “I want to do / The things I have not done. / Not just taste the nectar of Gods / But drown in it too.”' (Introduction) -
Nathan Sentance Reviews Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today Edited by Alison Whittaker
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , May no. 96 2020;
— Review of Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020 anthology poetry essay '2020 is a hectic year, ay? Severe bushfires, Covid-19 outbreak, the subsequent lockdown, the colonial government funding an idolised re-enactment of the starting point of the invasion of these lands, Black people being harmed and murdered by state agents such as the police and those same police protecting boring statues of colonisers all while Rio Tinto destroys a 46,000-year-old sacred site.' (Introduction) -
Lead You to the Shore
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020; (p. 109-116) 'After all these years, I am still amazed that I can identify with, as if it's my own story and the stories of those I love, someone else's tales of heartbreak from the other side of the continent. They experience tragedy and frustration in the exact same way my mob and I do. 'I Am the Road' by Claire G. Coleman did such a thing to me, provoked my sense of identity, belonging to my ancestry, my place of birth and where I grew up.' (Introduction)
-
Bleat Beneath a Blanket
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , May 2020; Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020; (p. 71-75)
— Review of Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020 anthology poetry essay'I often think of the vision of the Old People in constructing our culture on such egalitarian and environmentally loving principles – but that then leads to being overwhelmed by the devastation of soul they must have experienced when the Invaders so wilfully destroyed that social design.' (Introduction)
-
'Loss of Breath Is the Legacy' : Not so Much an Anthology as a Reckoning
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 423 2020; (p. 60)
— Review of Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020 anthology poetry essay ''The constant loss of breath is the legacy.' So wrote poet Ali Cobby Eckermann in 2015 for the anthology The Intervention. The eponymous Intervention of 2007 in the Northern Territory was, in the long history of this continent, the first time that the federal government had deployed the army against its own citizenry. As I write this review, in the United States police are using tear gas, traditionally reserved for warfare, against those protesting the worth of black life, while the president flirts with the idea of calling in the military.' (Introduction)
-
Nathan Sentance Reviews Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today Edited by Alison Whittaker
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , May no. 96 2020;
— Review of Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020 anthology poetry essay '2020 is a hectic year, ay? Severe bushfires, Covid-19 outbreak, the subsequent lockdown, the colonial government funding an idolised re-enactment of the starting point of the invasion of these lands, Black people being harmed and murdered by state agents such as the police and those same police protecting boring statues of colonisers all while Rio Tinto destroys a 46,000-year-old sacred site.' (Introduction) -
[Review] Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: StylusLit , March no. 9 2021;
— Review of Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020 anthology poetry essay'Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today is an anthology of poetry and essays edited by the Gomeroi poet and academic Alison Whittaker. It should prove an indispensable addition to the canon of First Nations poetry. This new anthology may take its cue from the seminal work edited by Kevin Gilbert, Inside Black Australia: An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry. Gilbert’s anthology was published in 1988 – the year the country marked its bicentennial of colonial rule with colourful advertisements featuring the jingle, “Celebration of a nation.” One of the aims of the anthology was to disrupt the notion of celebration.'(Introduction)
-
The Trouble with Poetry and Literary Awards
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , August 2020;'Australia has a strong history of poetry, albeit largely white and male. Henry Lawson, Banjo Patterson, Adam Lindsay Gordon, CJ Dennis, AD Hope and Dorothea Mackellar are all notable figures in Australia’s colonial history and literature. Why is it, then, that poetry collections are largely ignored by our major literary prizes?' (Introduction)
-
Introduction
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020; (p. ix-xiv) 'It licks at the edges of the colonisers' language. It hems it into a workable, imperfect shape. It tears through the settlers' plantations, their arrangements of the trees and their form. It takes its restorative heat to the right flora, which release their seeds and bear down hard for the burn. It loosens and enriches nutrients from the top of the ecology. It brings them down to bring other things up. Fire Front, a thin and precise incision into the colonial Australian imagination, is ready when the wind changes. When the wind changes, everything that is burning becomes the front. Big. Bigger and more powerful than we could have ever envisioned.' (Introduction)
-
Lead You to the Shore
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020; (p. 109-116) 'After all these years, I am still amazed that I can identify with, as if it's my own story and the stories of those I love, someone else's tales of heartbreak from the other side of the continent. They experience tragedy and frustration in the exact same way my mob and I do. 'I Am the Road' by Claire G. Coleman did such a thing to me, provoked my sense of identity, belonging to my ancestry, my place of birth and where I grew up.' (Introduction)
-
In Times Like These, What Would Oodgeroo Do? On the Influence Of Aboriginal Poet, Activist And Educator Oodgeroo Noonuccal
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: The Monthly , December no. 173 2020; (p. 22-28) 'Oodgeroo Noonuccal is widely acknowledged as a distinguished poet of determination and brilliance. She was also one of the heroes of the Aboriginal struggle for justice in the 1960s, known for her work as an activist, educator and public speaker. Her poetry educated Australians – and people throughout the world – on the plight of Aboriginal people. And she triumphantly let the world know through her poetry that the Australian style was not hers. In “Not My Style”, she yearned for a new time in this country: “I want to do / The things I have not done. / Not just taste the nectar of Gods / But drown in it too.”' (Introduction) -
'The Whole Canon Is Being Reappraised': How the #MeToo Movement Upended Australian Poetry
2021
single work
column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 4 April 2021; 'Poets and publishers say a surge of new writing has followed the movement, profoundly changing Australian letters in sometimes unexpected ways'
- Aboriginal Australians
- Ancestors
- Aboriginal literature & writers
- Aboriginal poets & poetry
- Aboriginal dispossession
- Aboriginal culture
- Families
- Social injustice
- Aboriginal self determination
- Aboriginal women
- Australia Day
- Injustice
- Aboriginal relationship with the land
- Landscape & identity
- Australian animals
