MIGRATION POEMS & ESSAYS

Other Terrain Journal Issue 5 online now

 

‘How could you do this to us?’ tells of the resolve needed to access Manus Island’s mothers and babies, Christine Hill’s attempt to bring the joy of play, the way undetermined detention time seeps all hope out of the mothers, how this becomes so sadly reflected in the wellbeing and behaviour of the infants. A birth in detention, by the way, is officially described as an ‘incident’ and the baby is given a number.

This moving, prize-winning essay by Christine Hill is published in issue 5 of Other Terrain Journal just released by Swinburne University.

In ‘Making a Stand’ fantasy writer, Isobel Carmody, describes how her initial involvement with a protest outside Brisbane’s Lady Cilento Hospital to prevent baby Asha being sent to off shore detention, lead to an empowering and inspiring, daily solo protest against off shore detention in general, wherever she might be. She becomes more confident, more informed, more determined. She thinks all the while about refugees and leaves us believing we should do the same.

There are not only essays, but also creative non-fiction, reviews, images and poems. Michelle Cahill’s Exile is lush in its use of nature as metaphor for displacement; Eileen Chong’s Black Sun instills the fear of being left behind; Jordan King-Lacroix’s Politics questions our silencings; Lorne Johnson’s Only some things is powerfully succinct; S. Nagaveeran’s (Ravi) I was on the boat, now I am on the road is raw and personal.

My own contribution is a found poem titled Asylum and the ekphrastic sequence of micro poems Syria’s Children. Extra thanks to the editors for including the full sequence of Syria’s Children as I've only had excerpts published previously. I’m incredibly pleased to be selected for publication in this insightful migration issue of Other Terrain.

More migration poems and essays at Swinburne's Backstory history journal. I'm heading there shortly — and yes — delighted to have poems published there too.