When the white girl reads the black poem
She is,
Dangerous
Reckless,
Brave, progressive,
Aggressive,
Like a dog who has just discovered how to remove
Her muzzle
She’ll stand here,
Behind microphone shields
She yields,
Her pen
Armed with poetry,
She speaks in tongues weaponised,
With freedom of speech
Each word
Pinpointing the politics
Of her own
White-washed ways
She’ll be deemed,
The ‘white girl who cares’
But I’m just a white girl who stared,
At the pages of a history book
That shouldn’t belong to me,
What is the point of believing,
The world is black and white,
If you only ever get to read
One side to the story
But that’s just white history,
We say we’re for equality,
But we are equally,
Fretting about what the media sees
White girl thinks she’s heroic,
Getting to cherry pick
Which Black voices make the screen,
Make a scene,
One headline invites our black fullas,
To ‘take a seat’
White Australia’s advocacy
For racism
Get that like, tick that box,
Then erase them,
Next time, news time says,
Black youth are terrorising towns,
Yeah, well we terrorised continents,
Take welcome to country,
As a compliment
Say yes to a voice in our government,
Get coverage,
Of stories
As colourful
As the rainbow serpent
But that doesn’t happen does it?
NO,
The campaigns screamed,
For sovereignty never ceded
Yeah, but we did,
YES,
Was a chance to redeem it, to plead forgiveness, because we’ve just figured,
That maybe, white girl’s voice
Has been speaking for too long,
Singing another colour’s song
Taking up space on a stage
Where she doesn’t belong
But where is the line drawn?
Between white girl sticking up for black fullas
And white girl being wrong?
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones