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Natalie Harkin Natalie Harkin i(A144935 works by)
Gender: Female
Heritage: Aboriginal Narungga ; Aboriginal
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Works By

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1 Weaving Blankets of Story and Hearts of Gold : An Archival-poetics Praxis Natalie Harkin , 2021 single work essay
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 May no. 101 2021;

'My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer on his fifty-ninth birthday and after a fierce battle with his body and mind, he died two years later. In the face of all odds, he maintained optimism and hope. He could never accept the inevitable, and in the words of Dylan Thomas, he did indeed rage against the dying of the light. His courage, dignity and will shone bright until the very end.' (Introduction)

1 Seep/Stir/Signify i "everywhere blood blood on the record but always", Natalie Harkin , 2021 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Journal , vol. 10 no. 2 2021; (p. 37-38)
1 Memory Lesson 7 | Archival-poetics Manifesto i "Lean in close. Take this offering as a slow situated-unfolding. Bear", Natalie Harkin , 2020 single work poetry
— Appears in: In Your Hands 2020; (p. 42)
1 Weaving the Colonial Archive : A Basket to Lighten the Load Natalie Harkin , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 44 no. 2 2020; (p. 154-166)

'Archival-poetics is an active, embodied reckoning with history and the violence of the colonial archive, particularly South Australia’s Aboriginal records. Family records at the heart of this work trigger questions about surveillance, representation and agency, bearing witness to the state’s archivisation processes and the revelation of what is both absent and present on the record. Emotion and intuition compel such archival-intimacy, particularly when reckoning with traumatic, contested and buried episodes of history that inevitably return to haunt. As my research progressed, I unintentionally re-created and became stuck in the very thing I was interrogating: the archive box. The only way to unbind myself was to write poetry and weave my way out, which grounded this archival-poetics in unanticipated ways. This article will explore the process of weaving with my nanna’s and great-grandmother's handwritten letters, as both conceptual metaphor and as literal, cultural practice. As a creative arts praxis, it will also discuss the transformative effect and decolonising potential of weaving archives into something beautiful and honouring, to offer new narratives of history for the future record. A Ngarrindjeri basket can hold many stories. This is one of them.' (Publication abstract)

1 4 y separately published work icon Archival-Poetics Colonial Archive : Archival-Poetics Natalie Harkin , Sydney : Vagabond Press , 2019 15786299 2019 selected work poetry

'Archival-Poetics offers a unique contribution to Australian poetry through a new way to write into, and out from, the State’s Aboriginal archives and from a Narungga woman’s standpoint. It will demonstrate an embodied reckoning with the colonial archive and those traumatic, contested and buried episodes of history that inevitably return to haunt. Family records at the heart of this work include South Australia’s Aboriginal Protection Board and Children’s Welfare Board records, highlighting assimilation policy measures targeting Aboriginal girls for removal into indenture domestic labour. Three interconnected threads underpin this Archival-poetic writing, and each thread is expanded as the theoretical heart to each section of the work: On Blood Memory – a reclamation of re-imagined histories through cultural identity (blood), narrative (memory) and connection to country (land); On Haunting as a ‘way of knowing’ – an active and honouring response to that which is silent and hidden; the seething and felt, yet unseen presence of colonial violence or unfinished business; On the Colonial Archive – a poetic spotlight on the colonial State and those key institutions, repositories and systems that maintain and perpetuate dominant discourses and representations on Indigenous peoples and histories. Each section of the work will be a potent, multi-textual artefact in its own right that centres the affective, transformative and honouring dimensions of haunting, where the potency of place, colonial-histories and blood-memory collide. They each bear witness to the state’s archivisation processes and the revelation of what is both absent and present on the record. As a trilogy offering in one volume of work, it collectively considers important questions of representation, surveillance and agency; and questions of power that resonate in our daily lives, on and through the colonial archive. It also bears witness to individual and collective loss in order to actively honour and contribute, beyond the local, to larger counter-hegemonic narratives of colonial history. This work demonstrates a critical-creative way of decolonising and transforming the colonial archive through poetic refusal, resistance and memory-making; a poetry that also engages theory, images and primary source archival material.'

1 Free Spirit Sonnet i "colonising giants pressure off-shore mines", Natalie Harkin , 2018 single work poetry
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , December no. 40 2018; (p. 16)
1 Grace i "Darkness - consumes all damp dappled chills", Natalie Harkin , 2018 single work poetry
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 63 no. 1 2018; (p. 33)
1 Edith i "Sharp fence-lines teach this Orphan Girl to wait", Natalie Harkin , 2018 single work poetry
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 63 no. 1 2018; (p. 33)
1 Charlotte i "Blessed Native Institution - Albany", Natalie Harkin , 2018 single work poetry
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 63 no. 1 2018; (p. 32)
1 Blood-Sonnet Chronicles Natalie Harkin , 2018 sequence poetry
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 63 no. 1 2018; (p. 32-33)
1 Heart's Core Lament Natalie Harkin , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: The Best Australian Poems 2017 2017; (p. 78-79) Australian Poetry Journal , vol. 7 no. 1 2017; (p. 94-95)
1 Archive-Box Transformation i "A violent truth on the State's record sits wedged in my stomach;", Natalie Harkin , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: Rabbit , no. 21 2017; (p. 100-102)
1 A Deep Archive Flows Natalie Harkin , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , October vol. 21 no. 2 2017;

'As a lover of poetry, family history, rivers and archives, it is not easy to stay afloat when immersed in the torrent imaginings of Wiradjuri poet Jeanine Leane’s latest book, Walk Back Over; best to surrender, ride with the undercurrents and open up to savour it all. This work extends her first chapbook, Dark Secrets After Dreaming (AD) 1887-1961, which ‘moves from campfire to captivity to confinement and through colonialism’ (2010). Over time Leane has fine-tuned a poetic rage juxtaposed with love from her sovereign Wiradjuri woman standpoint, as deep and layered as the rich sediment of her ancestral Murrumbidgee River – grounded, yet never still.'  (Introduction)

1 Occupy and Enjoy i "Dear King William the Fourth", Natalie Harkin , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: 20 Poets : Selected Poems, Cordite Books Series 1 & 2 2017; (p. 46-47)
1 Domestic i "The great need in dealing with the girls", Natalie Harkin , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: 20 Poets : Selected Poems, Cordite Books Series 1 & 2 2017; (p. 44-45) Fire Front : First Nations Poetry and Power Today 2020; (p. 20-22)
1 On Responsibility Natalie Harkin , 2017 single work column
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 226 2017; (p. 51-52)
'When I’m asked why I write poetry, what drives my writing, my answer usually settles on notions of responsibility that are not straightforward or easy to define. It can be a cathartic-compelling, a way of processing and responding to unexpected triggers, or reading and experiencing the work of others.' (Introduction)
1 Natalie Harkin : On Grandmother Stories & Creative Resilence Natalie Harkin , 2016 single work essay
— Appears in: Overland , Winter no. 223 2016; (p. 12-13)
'In this article, the author discusses cruelty against black women in South Australia for being Aboriginal. Topics include women from grandmother generation, who were the source of creative inspiration from many people; how artists of the grandmother generation survived racialised gendered violence and oppression and their innate creativity was barely released; and their efforts to continue campaigning for justice despite psychological impacts of past colonial policies.' (Publication abstract)
1 Boat-People i "Oceans storm with First-Fleet waves navigating", Natalie Harkin , 2016 single work poetry
— Appears in: Writing to the Wire 2016; (p. 39)
1 Justice Natalie Harkin , 2016 single work poetry
— Appears in: Active Aesthetics : Contemporary Australian Poetry 2016;
1 Mythology Natalie Harkin , 2016 single work poetry
— Appears in: Active Aesthetics : Contemporary Australian Poetry 2016;
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