My next poetry work doesn’t have a title. It’s a work in progress, drawing on my life, sense of being in the world and Australia as a woman of colour, a lover of actions beyond words, and just to make sense of this thing we call prejudice. It might include photographs, memoir, metaphor, lyricism, and is inspired by the many poets in the world, who in someway might lead me on my own journey, to understand why I write, where I am going and who I might become if I choose.
June Perkins
So you might ask yourself why do you write? Do you like the idea of it? Do you like the idea of an author? Or do you write to understand to release the tough memories so they dance until they make sense so the transcend you and find their meaning in larger steps to you? Do you like to show who you are in what you write Or do you hide yourself in there, hoping that one day someone will truly understand the tears that scraped the inside of your lids wanting to break the eyes open to see the boundary lines of privilege smashed in a tango show down or a tap dance solo that made you listen to the rythmns of despair? What is your lonely island? What is it? Why do you want to leave it? What is the place that traps you and says you cannot speak it the unspeakable that happened on that lonely island? Can you take me inside your grief and isolation not as a tourist or an enemy but as a friend to see your lonely island ? By June Perkins - reflection on a mentor session
And so it begins, from a conversation – now study, writing, reflecting, writing, and then again study, writing and reflecting.
And my new friends and teachers are Terrance Hayes, Safia Ellnillo and Claudia Rankine.
What is poetry today? What is my poetry becoming? What do I really want to say? How will I say it?
June