Ngalak

Amanda Bell

Note from the editor

A black out poem, or an erasure poem, uses an existing piece of work as a medium for new works to be created. Words are carefully selected from the original text to create a poem. The words around are often blacked out with a marker or erased entirely.  

Amanda Bell’s erasure poem, Ngalak, was created using a draft literature review, “Working out how to break through the Fire”: A review of truth telling, truth listening, and truth-seeking projects’, by Luisa Mitchell and Sisonke Msimang. This literature review speaks to the nature of truth-telling and truth-listening in colonial contexts and the shared responsibility of truth-seeking from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous settlers. 

Amanda has taken an excerpt from this literature review in which Noongar author Kim Scott shares a story about how the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories project committee invited a non-Indigenous man the Elders had grown up with to the workshop to share his knowledge of Noongar language, despite Kim's initial protests that the workshops should only involve Noongar people. He later reflected: 

‘Story enabled this transformation of the power relationship between Aboriginal and settler communities and created a shared, not merely interior, space. A paradox: empowerment through giving. Writers and storytellers sincerely offer a carefully crafted artifice of words and hope for something more than survival in the space between us.’

The full literature review Amanda used for her poem will soon be published and available to read on this page. 

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