The Fire Inside

Abstract

The Fire Inside is a new poetry manuscript written for a Masters of Research in Creative Writing within the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. The manuscript reflects upon social and political tenderness and friction, myths and myth making, and archival inheritance. Grouped under the titles ‘The Fire Inside’, ‘The Fire Out There’ and ‘Around The Fire’, the collection builds upon some of the thematics of my 2021 collection how to make a basket, but with more friction… and more fire.

The accompanying exegesis is a series of papers that consider the compulsions of story and poetics from both personal and academic perspectives. I aim to consider this particular moment of the early 2020s in Indigenous writing, a moment with a swelling current of First Nations women and non-binary folk writing works of acclaim within the Indigenous community, but also in the non- Indigenous literary world. More Indigenous poetry than ever before is being published and consumed by audiences of all kinds. This moment has been built by community over decades, over generations. It is a hard-won place, but a place that continues to grow.

In this collection of essays the first piece, ‘The edge, the margin, that is where we meet', considers the edge as a place of perspective and unity, a place where First Nations women and non-binary writers turn politics into poetics. The second essay – ‘Dancing through the archive of our documentation: The making of WINHANGANHA’ – is a personal account of working with the National Film and Sound Archives. Extending upon this enquiry are close readings of Natalie Harkin’s Dirty Words, ‘sing-chant-rage and carry it all’, and Evelyn Araluen’s use of ‘the trope’ in ‘The trope will meet you on the road: Dropbear and the violence of ‘the trope’’. The final essay ‘Radical Joy’ is a personal journey through the power of reading and writing poetry.

Date of Thesis submission	2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Western Sydney University
Supervisor	Kate Fagan (Supervisor)