PM: No, that poem was spurred by an artwork by Marina Abramovic, that I saw in Manhattan. The whole artwork was that you were given a blindfold, so you couldn’t see anything, and you were given noise-cancelling earphones –
PC: You were basically going in to a sensory deprivation cell.
PM: Yeah. You were led into a room by an attendant, and you were just left by yourself for as long as you felt like it.
What you knew was that, if you raised your hand, someone would come and lead you out.
So, the whole artwork was –
PC: Could you see your hand?
PM: No, no, no, you can’t see anything. And you can’t hear. You’re just told, if you raise your hand we’ll come over. I was there for about 30 minutes. This is in central Manhattan, with traffic everywhere. It was a pretty intense experience. While I was there, I started going a little bit bonkers. And after about 20 minutes, I started dialling a telephone on the ground, which I thought was the wall, like I couldn’t even tell between the two.
PC: Was your father dead by then?
PM: Oh yeah, 20 years, 25 years. But I just realised at some point that I was calling him. Like that’s what I was trying to do in that space. ‘Cause you start to hallucinate. After about 20 minutes of that sort of sensory deprivation, you start to imagine things. So, I just started dialling – like on an old dial phone, the ones that we grew up with – and I realised at some point that, I was dialling my dad and the words –
[falters]
PC: You okay?
PM: Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The words
I want to say to you before you died
They were the words that came to me.
PC: You and I share a similar experience, although I wasn’t sensory-deprived. My grandfather said to me, before he died, ‘I wish you were a man when I was young.’
That was one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me.
PM: Yeah.
PC: Probably is the nicest thing anyone said to me.
PM: I can’t remember a word my father said on that last phone call. I can’t remember any of it.
Which is kind of nice, ‘cause it means that each time I think about it, it’s a bit different. Because I can only make it up.
PC: Did tears happen?
PM: Oh many, many, rivers, rivers over years.
PC: No, I mean on that occasion, when you deprived yourself of everything else.
PM: I think so, I think they did.
PC: Are you monastically driven?
PM: Sensory deprivation would be part how I’d write on any occasion.
PC: Opens minds.
Paul Magee studied in Melbourne, Moscow, San Salvador and Sydney. He is author of From Here to Tierra del Fuego (University of Illinois Press: 2000), Cube Root of Book (John Leonard Press: 2006), Stone Postcard (John Leonard Press: 2014) and Suddenness and the Composition of Poetic Thought (Rowman and Littlefield: 2022). Paul is Professor of Poetry at the University of Canberra, where he directs the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR).
Jen Crawford is author of Admissions (Five Islands Press, 2000), bad appendix (Auckland: Titus Books, 2009), Napoleon Swings (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2009), Pop Riveter (Auckland: Pania Press, 2011), Koel (Cordite Books, 2016) and Lichen Loves Stone (Tinfish Press, 2016). With Rina Kikuchi, Jen co-edited and part-translated Poet to Poet: Contemporary Women Poets from Japan (2017), an anthology of 10 contemporary female Japanese poets. Jen is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Canberra.
Wayne Knight is a Barkindji/Kunya person. Wayne was born and raised in Bourke. Wayne’s early life was informed by his Grandmother, Neta, a Kunya Elder who lived in Bourke, and who taught Wayne 'cross-language talk' (a multilingual speak that was used between Kunya, Barkindji, Murrawarri, Wongamara language groups in communication, before the coming of Westerners to the Plains Country of his birth). Wayne was taught how to track and identify specific plants and animals by his Grandfather Hope (a Barkindji person). Wayne's knowledge of Barkindji lands was enhanced with and under the tuition of senior Barkindji Uncles and Elders, who assisted his teaching of the waterways between Brewarrina and Menendi Lakes areas, and on the plains country, between Brewarrina (Nyemba Country) and Bourke, Cobar and Wilcannia. Wayne held a senior Indigenous Parks and Wildlife Officer's position with NSW Dept. Parks and Wildlife until a serious back injury caused him to retreat from that work. Wayne's knowledge of Barkindji Culture and Country is unmatched in the Bourke area.
Paul Collis is a Barkindji man. He was born in Bourke, in far north/west New South Wales. His early life was informed by Barkindji, Kunya, Murawarri, Wongamara and Nyempa story tellers and artists, who taught him Aboriginal Culture and Law. He is author of Dancing Home (University of Queensland Press, 2017) and Nightmares Run Like Mercury (Recent Works Press, 2021). Paul works as Director, Indigenous Engagement, at the University of Canberra.
