They wrote:
If it’s OK, can I ask a few questions regarding the exhibition? I thought about this for a while after the actual Junto, but are any of the people involved in the event indigenous? Or even the writer of the original haiku?
I ask because the prompt is using the lived experience of that group of people and I feel like it’s sort of weird for me to have even participated, being a well-off non-oppressed guy.
My reply:
Poison Waterholes Creek…is one of 14 poems that will be exhibited, along with around five hours of music.
That poem was written by a friend who is very conscious of local history and my initial response was that I liked my poem about that location better because it didn’t open old wounds.
Then I had to remind myself that I want to engage people but, more importantly, I read a column by Stan Grant where he talked about the need to break the silence surrounding the Frontier Wars.
Stan’s father is a senior Wiradjuri elder and lives in Narrandera, while Stan Jr has also become a prominent voice in the process of reconciliation that Australia is going through.
I think it’s an important conversation, particularly as increasing numbers of Australians identify as indigenous.
It’s been really rewarding for me to see the discussion in the responses to the Junto, particularly those people who’ve gone and looked into Wiradjuri culture or found parallels with indigenous people in their own locations.
Sometimes I think on how I can claim to be a first-generation Australian and how that is convenient when it comes to excusing myself from reconciliation.
However, I am increasingly seeing the need to play role… So I’ve begun taking the opportunities to promote the conversation and it’s developed over the last six months while I’ve been thinking it through.
Small things seem important, like reminding people of the treaty that was thought to have been negotiated nearby in the early 19th Century. As the national discussion about a treaty continues to be muffled by other issues, it’s good to remind people that it’s not something new.
