Article
Interview with Lionel Fogarty
July 03, 2011
Michael Brennan: When did you start writing and what motivated you?
Lionel Fogarty: My poetry was formed by my public attendance at protest rallies and community meetings and demonstrations for Black Rights and Land Rights in Queensland and the wider Australia. But I must say my first break at writing came from when I was on trumped up charges on Conspiracy Against the State in 1974 and 1975. This entered me into a focus of explaining my experiences about the differentiation of the political policies and written legislative explanations. The motivation of my first insight knowing poetry in written form came from the community of Cherbourg (the mission where I grew up) through seeing parents write letters to the Aboriginal Protection Board, to sons and daughters in prison.
MB: Who are the writers who first inspired you to write and who are the writers you read now? What’s changed?
Lionel Fogarty: As a young man in the political movement my influences were speeches given by well known Aboriginal authors Kath Walker (later known as Oodgeroo Noonuccal), Kevin Gilbert and Jack Davis. At that time I felt there was much influence around me to read and also to write. The highly volatile political poetry at that time was prolific. I was trying to intake the Australian writers, and also other black writers, such as Malcolm X, Frans Fannon. With this black reading I was influenced by lots of communist and socialist writers. Today I enjoy modernistic Aboriginal writings that are published and also unpublished. There are many emerging Aboriginal writers who are showcasing a new style of literature and language such as Ali Cobby Eckermann. I also have a great respect in reading our internationally published writers such as Dr Anita Heiss. Aboriginal writers have a style of change in interpreting suffering, happiness and new experiences.
MB: How important is ‘everyday life’ to your work?
Lionel Fogarty: The ‘everyday’ is very important to me, yet the writings do not benefit when there is no published form. But I must say for me the written importance is also public performance. That is what I think about everyday; about where can I contribute my writings, as long as it is in a storyline of consciousness, giving spirit to those illiterates. Using English in my everyday works gave influence to myself, to see necessity in Aboriginal languages and present day Dreamtime storylines, as something authentic in surrealistic writings.
MB: What is the role or place of subjectivity in your poetry?
Lionel Fogarty: Deaths in Custody is the most important subject in my poetry, as well as Land Rights and general struggles of national affairs. These things influence my role outside of the subjectivity, into an international role-place of writing towards my people; that Indigenous people have a written struggle all around the world.
MB: Do you see your work in terms of literary traditions and/or broader cultural or political movements?
Lionel Fogarty: I see all these as one at the moment. In terms of the broader cultural literary forms, to me this means that we can still use the English language to introduce our written forms of traditional languages, to be read and to be written. As far as putting pen to paper and pushing a button (Internet), these traditions will always have an influence on seeing my works. Yet I must say paintings and dances of Aboriginal culture will always have a political movement to come up against. So I do see my works as being forced into a united literature.
MB: What aspect of writing poetry and working as a poet is the most challenging?
Lionel Fogarty: The biggest challenge as an Aboriginal poet is to explain the political mind games through literacy, when one has an artistic feeling and a cultural heart. It is still difficult for Aboriginal writers to be published in Australia today, due to the lack of Indigenous publishing houses and their restricted budgets. At the same time, trying to pay the rent and working other jobs means that I have to exploit my personal experiences of my past to get published. It is difficult to say that I am part of an industry and to say that I should sack my community to make it in the big innovation of getting published. I am up to taking that stand alone yet I still need a community to belong to.
MB: What reading, other than poetry, is important to your work as a poet and why?
Lionel Fogarty: I am mosaic in reading, I nitpick readings. I often read back to front, similar to Chinese. I like reading national Indigenous papers, which also gives me my international flavour of understanding of how to read, even to speak, the new changes of literacy. I also feel that the science of the Dreamtime stories are mappings of philosophy, that are continually in present day, and gives me broader understanding of native titles and law in its existence today.
MB: What is ‘Australian poetry’? Do you see yourself as an ‘Australian’ poet?
Lionel Fogarty: Definitely not an Australian poet! There is no Australian poetry in Australia. The true authentic of what physically and spiritually motivates families in the modern day only comes from our culture that has changed for the contemporary livings. I am a First Australian of Indigenous poetry, which makes me part of five thousand Indigenous authors in Australia today. What makes me a poet is that I identify with a million natives under no tribal boundaries or literacy boundaries.
MB: Don Anderson once described Australian poetry as Australia’s only ‘blood sport’. More recently critics have seen Australian poetry in terms of a ‘new lyricism’ (David McCooey) and ‘networked language’ (Philip Mead). What is the current state of play in Australian poetry? How do you think Australia poetry and discussions about Australian poetry might best develop in the next ten years?
Lionel Fogarty: I believe that the only lyricism in terms of the next ten years of change in poetry means that white Australian authors should have the solidarity to strike out or to have a special day for Australian Indigenous authors when in necessary of national protest. The current state of Australian poetry should be in full swing of professionalism in boosting and promoting Australian Indigenous poetry.
MB: How is poetry relevant or valuable to contemporary society and culture in Australia or at an international level?
Lionel Fogarty: Poetry is only relevant when it changes the bloody law! And poetry is only relevant when it boosts love of intelligence, and also futuristically gives younger people the courage and confidence to overcome all political matters and emotional slaughters. At an international level communities of the world will see through Australian Aboriginal poetry that we can live One Land One Love!
Lionel Fogarty: My poetry was formed by my public attendance at protest rallies and community meetings and demonstrations for Black Rights and Land Rights in Queensland and the wider Australia. But I must say my first break at writing came from when I was on trumped up charges on Conspiracy Against the State in 1974 and 1975. This entered me into a focus of explaining my experiences about the differentiation of the political policies and written legislative explanations. The motivation of my first insight knowing poetry in written form came from the community of Cherbourg (the mission where I grew up) through seeing parents write letters to the Aboriginal Protection Board, to sons and daughters in prison.
MB: Who are the writers who first inspired you to write and who are the writers you read now? What’s changed?
Lionel Fogarty: As a young man in the political movement my influences were speeches given by well known Aboriginal authors Kath Walker (later known as Oodgeroo Noonuccal), Kevin Gilbert and Jack Davis. At that time I felt there was much influence around me to read and also to write. The highly volatile political poetry at that time was prolific. I was trying to intake the Australian writers, and also other black writers, such as Malcolm X, Frans Fannon. With this black reading I was influenced by lots of communist and socialist writers. Today I enjoy modernistic Aboriginal writings that are published and also unpublished. There are many emerging Aboriginal writers who are showcasing a new style of literature and language such as Ali Cobby Eckermann. I also have a great respect in reading our internationally published writers such as Dr Anita Heiss. Aboriginal writers have a style of change in interpreting suffering, happiness and new experiences.
MB: How important is ‘everyday life’ to your work?
Lionel Fogarty: The ‘everyday’ is very important to me, yet the writings do not benefit when there is no published form. But I must say for me the written importance is also public performance. That is what I think about everyday; about where can I contribute my writings, as long as it is in a storyline of consciousness, giving spirit to those illiterates. Using English in my everyday works gave influence to myself, to see necessity in Aboriginal languages and present day Dreamtime storylines, as something authentic in surrealistic writings.
MB: What is the role or place of subjectivity in your poetry?
Lionel Fogarty: Deaths in Custody is the most important subject in my poetry, as well as Land Rights and general struggles of national affairs. These things influence my role outside of the subjectivity, into an international role-place of writing towards my people; that Indigenous people have a written struggle all around the world.
MB: Do you see your work in terms of literary traditions and/or broader cultural or political movements?
Lionel Fogarty: I see all these as one at the moment. In terms of the broader cultural literary forms, to me this means that we can still use the English language to introduce our written forms of traditional languages, to be read and to be written. As far as putting pen to paper and pushing a button (Internet), these traditions will always have an influence on seeing my works. Yet I must say paintings and dances of Aboriginal culture will always have a political movement to come up against. So I do see my works as being forced into a united literature.
MB: What aspect of writing poetry and working as a poet is the most challenging?
Lionel Fogarty: The biggest challenge as an Aboriginal poet is to explain the political mind games through literacy, when one has an artistic feeling and a cultural heart. It is still difficult for Aboriginal writers to be published in Australia today, due to the lack of Indigenous publishing houses and their restricted budgets. At the same time, trying to pay the rent and working other jobs means that I have to exploit my personal experiences of my past to get published. It is difficult to say that I am part of an industry and to say that I should sack my community to make it in the big innovation of getting published. I am up to taking that stand alone yet I still need a community to belong to.
MB: What reading, other than poetry, is important to your work as a poet and why?
Lionel Fogarty: I am mosaic in reading, I nitpick readings. I often read back to front, similar to Chinese. I like reading national Indigenous papers, which also gives me my international flavour of understanding of how to read, even to speak, the new changes of literacy. I also feel that the science of the Dreamtime stories are mappings of philosophy, that are continually in present day, and gives me broader understanding of native titles and law in its existence today.
MB: What is ‘Australian poetry’? Do you see yourself as an ‘Australian’ poet?
Lionel Fogarty: Definitely not an Australian poet! There is no Australian poetry in Australia. The true authentic of what physically and spiritually motivates families in the modern day only comes from our culture that has changed for the contemporary livings. I am a First Australian of Indigenous poetry, which makes me part of five thousand Indigenous authors in Australia today. What makes me a poet is that I identify with a million natives under no tribal boundaries or literacy boundaries.
MB: Don Anderson once described Australian poetry as Australia’s only ‘blood sport’. More recently critics have seen Australian poetry in terms of a ‘new lyricism’ (David McCooey) and ‘networked language’ (Philip Mead). What is the current state of play in Australian poetry? How do you think Australia poetry and discussions about Australian poetry might best develop in the next ten years?
Lionel Fogarty: I believe that the only lyricism in terms of the next ten years of change in poetry means that white Australian authors should have the solidarity to strike out or to have a special day for Australian Indigenous authors when in necessary of national protest. The current state of Australian poetry should be in full swing of professionalism in boosting and promoting Australian Indigenous poetry.
MB: How is poetry relevant or valuable to contemporary society and culture in Australia or at an international level?
Lionel Fogarty: Poetry is only relevant when it changes the bloody law! And poetry is only relevant when it boosts love of intelligence, and also futuristically gives younger people the courage and confidence to overcome all political matters and emotional slaughters. At an international level communities of the world will see through Australian Aboriginal poetry that we can live One Land One Love!
Sponsors
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère