To the Place of Each Other

Editorial Three

From the place of the groper to the place of the burning bone to the place of sorrow and wailing to the place of salmon to the place of rainbows to the place of birthing to the place of the hooked stick to the place of the tails, there is the language of water and earth and mother all around. Those places are all real places, places on Wardandi Boodjar, from Kilcarnup to Gnarabup to Boodjidup to Calgardup, with stops along the way and in between. They are saltwater places, if not out there alone, then islands where people gather and share, that give shelter and rest and hope to travellers and those who stay home.

This issue of Portside Review, our third, celebrates that sensibility by continuing to weave together the threads of our independence, by making solidarity and sovereignty into actions that we take through generosity and imagination. We are led there this time, like all times, by First Nations voices from Anaiwan, Gond, Koitur, and other communities and countries, from nations that too often disguise a deeper and truer reality of being, in so called Australia and India, especially.

Today, this day, this issue, I am especially grateful to Akash Poyam and Nicole Curby. I first read Akash on Adivasi literature in the esteemed journal Caravan, which continues to publish courageous and significant work that holds up multiplicity, plurality, and difference. I started a dialogue with Akash because I wanted to know more; to read deeper into First Nations voices from that continent and to see the affinities with people here in my newer home. It is because of Akash that we have our issue’s focus with nine pieces coming from Adivasi voices with self-determination, grace, openness, intelligence and possibility. Through Akash there is Bhujand Meshram, Madhavi Uike, Paddam Anasuya, Durga Masram, GR Mandavi, Jitendra Meravi and two pieces by Usha Kiran Atram.

One of the aspects that struck me in reading through these Adivasi voices was how they stay grounded, connected, and also resist, how they manifest and compile, how they loop into and out of power and community; while speaking to a complexity with clarity and grace and creativity. Readers will see their own affinities in art and activism, and no matter where you stand, you will see that these First Nations realities create new continuities with old understandings. Always was, always will be Adivasi land.

The other two people of significance, Gabi Briggs and Callum Clayton Dixon, have travelled to me through sound waves with a connection from Nicole Curby, a radio journalist and activist that I have known for years and even shared meals with in New Delhi where Akash now is. They make up our sound feature in Issue Three with reflections on weaving, on belonging, home, violence and history. When we regard these pieces all together, we can see that the place of the groper is as much a part of this world as the one before and the one after, the one we inherit and pass on, which means looking after it as though it were a mother we cherished all day long.

The remainder of this issue is made up of a wide selection of the Indian Ocean’s best writing. There is a transcript and a creative sound feature from Jamie Marina Lau that reflects, refracts, contends with our present moment, with politics, nature, witnessing, creating and making. There is plenty of poetry this time around, some great interviews and five significant pieces of prose in addition to the Adivasi pieces.

Our poetry in this issue comes from Eunica Andrada, Manisha Anjali, Mar Bucknell, Lucy Dougan, Eileen Chong, Gabriela Georges, Luoyang Chen, Siddharth Dasgupta, Jose Luis Pablo, Shenali Perera, Daley Rangi and Danny Silva Soberano. The poetry is fecund in this volume; rich in its language and ways of expression, attached to place, aware of its purpose, cognisant of how we might return to our homes with new perspectives on ports that are not our own. With these poets as guides, we turn to face terns, to float next to seagulls, to get swept up in currents that eddy and flow, that carry hopes and dreams to neighbours we have only just met.

Poetry contributor Eunice Andrada is also interviewed by Kaya Ortiz and we celebrate the release of her important new book, TAKE CARE. Gisele Ishimwe interviews Johannesburg Review of Books editor Jennifer Malec, chatting about what to read, how to craft a journal, and what it means to persist in the literary sector. Saadia Ahmed is in conversation with Naveen Kishore, the Seagull Books maverick, based in Kolkata and with many years experience of making works of art out of publications. And Tiffany Ko interviews Leah Jing McIntosh to reflect on Asian Australian experiences and the Liminal project that features its own interviews. Our hope with the interviews in this issue of Portside Review is that readers gain a greater sense of writing and books and ideas across the region, and improve their aesthetic and professional knowledge. It is about sharing an understanding of how we make our lives here as editors, publishers, as poets, readers, and conversationalists.

Finally, there are five prose pieces, opposite sides of the same dice: the first being a reflection on cross-cultural relationships and parenting located in suburbia, where the struggles of an everyman are told with humour and warmth by Laurie Steed. Simeon Neo writes a piece of home and the body, with fragmentation and sweat, breaking and re-making, between and across waters. Melanie Hobbs has arrived to narrate the danger and suspense of a simple situation in an ecological and psychological terrain that is tense, haunted, spooky even. There is a piece by Faiza Bokhari that highlights identity and gender in small gestures, of buses and gazes and bruises too, that resonates with how we walk in the world no matter where we belong to. The final prose piece takes us back to Portside Review’s very first published piece, namely the situation in Myanmar, where Chris Lin gives us an updated take on what is happening there with reference to writers, protest, resistance, and persistence. We encourage readers to stay involved with what is happening there and to re-listen to our initial Diary of a Revolution project.

Portside Review Issue Three continues with our desire to re-connect, to stay put, to float away, to go from place to place, from the place of bamboo to the place of carrot cake to the place of steam to the place of rocks that are the colour of the moon to the place of singing rabbits. We hope you stop off with us too.

Robert Wood is the Creative Director of Centre for Stories. He has worked for Peril, Cordite, and Liminal, all based in Naarm/Melbourne. The author of more than 300 pieces of literary journalism, Robert is interested in translation, rocks, collaboration, walking, and food. Read more about him here.