i am no longer interested in writing overviews of national poetics -
old, new, emergent or otherwise. i see all such structures as being
complicit in the construction of national identities that inevitably
destroy liberty and equality. the machine of the state has many guises,
and the poetry industry is one of them. even overtly political poets who
allow their poetry to become part of a national 'heritage' or identity
are complicit in this. language should be used to reduce the influence
of the state, to fragment, to create lines of communication between
non-centralised communities. if poetry captures the highs and lows of
human aspiration, it does so all too often through a simulacrum of
freedom - it plays the games of bigoted and oppressive societies. i am
not interested in the idea of australia. i am interested in bringing
attention to tension and conflict behind the face of pleasantness - to
highlight the injustices to indigenous peoples and the racisms and
misogyny that prop up the Australian government, its bureaucracy, and
those capitalist enterprises that support it. i wish to highlight the
injustices to animals as well as humans, and to work towards halting the
destruction of the environment. REHABILITATION, PREVENTION, and a
linguistic disobedience.
john kinsella
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