WesterlyMagazine

Editorial: Westerly 69.1

We’re so excited for the impending launch of Westerly 69.1, another issue full of wonderful new works for you to enjoy.

With writing and ideas from Andrew Sutherland, Melanie Pryor, Diane Fahey, Jill Jones, Alan Fyfe, Miriam Jones, Ellie Fisher, Siobhan Hodge, Jake Dennis, Nathan Erwin, David Stavanger, Elizabeth Smither, Sam Wren Quan Sing, Kerry Greer, Ronald Arana Atilano, Graham Kershaw, Susanne Kennedy, Grace Chan, Franchesca Walker, Michael Farrell, Lisa Collyer, Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon, Arna Radovich, Meg Drummond-Wilson, Luoyang Chen, Renee Pettitt-Schipp, Catherine Johnston, Kevin Brophy, Nathan Hobby, Jo Langdon, Heather Taylor Johnson, Aden Curran and many others.

To give you a taste of what this issue is all about, here are some words from Daniel Juckes, our General Editor.

Purchase your copy of Westerly 69.1 here.

From the Editor

I’ve learned a little about the bungarra, or sand goanna¹., over the course of editing this issue of Westerly. Some of what I have learned has been startling. For instance, in November 1993, ‘A miniature radio-transmitter with a battery life of approximately 140 days […] was attached to the lateral aspect of the base of the tail for seven V. gouldii’ in Karrakatta cemetery (Thompson 107)—not far from where I’m writing this editorial. According to Thompson (a zoologist at Edith Cowan University), this transmitter ‘was sewn into a denim harness that was glued with Selleys “kwikgrip” to the skin of the goanna’s tail’ (107).

To help gather data, Thompson asked ‘well-trained observers’ to spend 131 hours watching two of the seven bungarra; according to him, ‘On numerous occasions, the observed V. gouldii moved toward the observer, reducing the distance […] to less than 5m, and on a few occasions to less than 2m. This suggests that the presence of an observer had a minimal influence on their behaviour’ (108). This seems a peculiar presumption to make, considering the bungarra were harnessed up and dragging radio-transmitters by their tails.

Hop Dac’s beautiful and eccentric Bungarra, which graces the cover of this issue of Westerly, and which can also be found reproduced in full on page 55, seems to conjure some of the (perceived, admittedly) absurdity I sense in Thompson’s descriptions of looking—which I know is never an impartial act. Dac’s bungarra stands side-on, and is staring hard, alert, aware, all about her; the image is flicker and movement, despite the inevitable stillness of a painting. When I look at her, I am reminded of a poem by John Kinsella, in The New Arcadia, in which he describes ‘The Bungarra Goanna’ with the precision of a scientist—and perhaps with similar tongue-in-cheek to my own reading of Thompson’s experiment. Kinsella writes how ‘The yellow spots / of the bungarra / connect Walwalinj / and Babylon; at a glance / there are eighty-nine / and they’re golden’ (25). We see so much when we look, even glancingly. What we see depends on what we know.

The pose in which Dac depicted the bungarra he painted was adopted by those seen in the cemetery. Thompson writes, ‘On a few occasions, a goanna was observed to stand erect, by balancing on the hind legs and tail (Fig [E]). This stance appeared to be prompted by the need to see over some obstruction, as it occurred when the V. gouldii were between graves and their vision of the surrounding area was obstructed’ (112). Dac’s bungarra, instead of staring over a grave, stands and looks over an equally incongruous context: a meal, waiting to be eaten. She is, I have no doubt, acutely aware of being watched, just as she watches acutely. There is also nothing neutral in Dac’s gaze, even if the meaning of a painting like his changes from moment to moment. The only certain thing, for me, is the knowledge of encounter itself.           

As a feature in this issue we offer Catherine Noske’s 2024 Randolph Stow Memorial Lecture, ‘Ngaangk: those sunstruck miles’. Kate, of course, needs no introduction to readers of Westerly. Those familiar with her and with her work will find here the nuance, rigour and beauty with which she imbues her writing and thinking. Kate’s reading of Stow is complimented by Samuel Cox’s ‘On the Track to Tourmaline’, which begins with the claim that texts ‘are not purely products of the mind, but of space too’ (57). I’ve been thinking about this line in relation both to the act of looking, and to a line that Kate quotes from Stow’s ‘Raw Material’ (published in Westerly 6.2): ‘The environment of a writer is as much inside him as in what he observes’ [sic] (4). Place, then, is one component part of how looking is not impartial—it is part of what we know, just as poetry is.

This place—the place from which we work here in Boorloo, on the banks of the Derbarl Yerrigan, a kilometre or two from a cemetery in which, over thirty years ago, bungarra clambered over gravestones while wearing denim—has shaped the way in which we go about looking at, and then compiling, the works gathered here. Given this, I’d like to acknowledge Issue 69.1 of Westerly was put together on Whadjuk Noongar boodja, which is unceded, and which has been cared for by Noongar people for as long as it has been. I offer respects to Elders past and present and feel so grateful for the particular perspective looking from the west allows.

In a similar way, your own contexts will inform how this collection is read: the Country that this Magazine works its way to will shape how it is held and understood. The distance you are from the things you will read about, or any obstructions that crop up in your way as you do, will impact how these words find you. The same is true, of course, for the writing itself, which contains within it each of the places of its making. In that sense, I am acutely aware that your presence here as reader will have tremendous impact on the behaviour of the writing we have assembled. You will change all of these words by looking at them. Thank you, then, for taking the time to sit with this issue of Westerly, and for seeing what you see in it.

Before signing off, I’d like to thank all the people who have made this issue of Westerly happen. To Shalmalee Palekar, Sarah Yeung, Melissa Kruger and Catherine Noske: thank you. I’m very grateful for your support, intelligence and grace. Thank you, too, to our external editors, Casey Mulder (First Nations), Julie Koh (Fiction), Stefanie Markidis (Creative nonfiction), Lucy Dougan (Poetry) and Cassandra Atherton (Commissions). And, in production, thank you to Becky Chilcott (Chil3), Keith Feltham (Lasertype) and Advance Press. You have been patient and so very professional. Our superb interns in support of this issue were Patrick Eastough, Dionne Sparks and James Stanwix: thank you! And thank you, too, to all those who have offered support in any stripe or colour—especially to the authors whose work we share, over the page.

Before closing, I’d like to recognise formally the funding bodies who allow Westerly to keep publishing: thanks to Creative Australia and to the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries. Westerly is also sincerely grateful to The University of Western Australia and to the Arthur Finn Bequest: both provide essential support.

Daniel Juckes, June 2024

Notes

Notes
1 Or racehorse goanna, or karda, or Gould’s goanna, or Gould’s monitor or Varanus gouldii…

Works Cited

Kinsella, John. ‘The Bungarra Goanna’ in The New Arcadia. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2005. 25–26.

Stow, Randolph. ‘Raw Material’, Westerly 6.2 (1962): 3–5.

Thompson, G. G. ‘Foraging Patterns and Behaviours, Body Postures and Movement Speed for Goannas, Varanus gouldii (Reptilia: Varanidae), in a Semi-Urban Environment’, Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 78 (1995): 107–114. Sourced at: https://www.rswa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ vol78pt420107-114.pdf.

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