Lynette Knapp, Baalunga, 2023. Silver gel pen, acrylic background on canvas. © Lynette Knapp, 2023.
Westerly: djinda
Online Special Issue 14
The title of the issue, ‘djinda’, is a Noongar language word from the southwest region of Australia for the stars.
djinda was the theme of the 2023 Perth Festival, expanding on previous years’ themes of karla (fire), beeliar (river) and wardan (ocean). The poetry in this issue sounds our collective hope for connection with the stars as a storied skyscape of Country.
‘The luminous poetry in this online special issue of Westerly constellates in skyward storytelling about the stars and our desire to expand ourselves from Earth to universe, from the known to the unknowable.’
Guest Editor Elfie Shiosaki, 2023
Westerly: djinda is a collaboration of five poets under the curation of Elfie Shiosaki as guest editor.
The issue was co-designed with the Perth Festival, which in 2023 worked with the Noongar community to celebrate the theme djinda, including in seeking cultural permissions for engaging with the theme and the use of Noongar language.
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Contents
Elfie Shiosaki From the Editor
Charmaine Papertalk Green
‘Ilgari Aba/Grandmother Sky’
‘Minda Barna’
‘Another Milky Way Journey’
Riley Faulds
‘An Arid Sky’
‘Star-Ciphering’
‘Scattered Clouds’
‘star machine’
Shey Marque ‘Synesthesia through Binoculars (or When I thought I saw the Green Comet but it Was Only a Shooting Star)
‘Watching the Lightning Strike’
Sketch Poem of Fireworks at Dawn‘
‘An Exploded-Sonnet Sequence’
Nadia Rhook
‘The Space of Space’
‘Some Burning Questions about the History of the Southern Cross’
‘a galaxy’s fervent ears’
‘the stars have not yet burnt us’
Kaya Ortiz
‘Bordertown, December 2018’
‘Ghost story’
‘Stelliferous’
Partners
