mark the dawn, the latest collection of poetry from Wiradjuri writer and artist and winner of the UQP Quentin Bryce Award in 2024, Jazz Money, is a commentary on the state of our modern world with all its increasing hostilities, life-threatening disasters and heart-breaking losses, delivered delicately and with so much hope, beauty and gratitude.
Written in response to contemporary essays, exhibitions, artworks, performances and films, or commissioned and previously published in literary journals and on other websites, the 37 poems in this book explore contemporary themes such as love, family, nature, climate change, connection to Country, racism and equality in “trying to reckon with the many tumultuous events and compounding incidents of colonial violence…”
In the poem ‘strike the sparks’, for example, we are invited to see the advancements and actions of modern society as an attempt to recreate something that was already and always there: “but you collectors/are full of/forgetting”.
And in ‘the fire inside’ we contemplate the power of fire to not only destroy but also regenerate – how everything in nature is connected, how life moves in cycles and how the stories missing from the archives live on forever in ‘the fire inside’ waiting to be reignited. “we are not the dusty record of absence/we are the soil the air the water the flesh the fire/the whole story is written in the scars/of the body/that continues to dance.”
In her acknowledgements, Money tell us that mark the dawn is also an “attempt to figure how we mark time, how we make sense of our moment…” and a varied and unique style of formatting, use of punctuation and other icons can be seen in several of the poems, helping to create spaces, shapes and pauses for the reader to ponder.
The asterisk on the book’s front cover has also been included in several poems, while in others the words flow in unstructured and irregular patterns across the page like water or clouds moving across the sky.
In ‘there was rain in the ways of wind crying’, a poem showing how we are no longer living in harmony with nature, and the flood rains come to cleanse an earth that no longer hears our song, whole combinations of punctuation marks appear. They are like a kind of morse code or the notes of a strange song.
mark the dawn is also a powerful acknowledgement and celebration of “how First Nations, People of Colour, queer, disabled, diasporic and marginalised people show up with the astounding courage to live with joy and love and wonder, even in a world of violence”.
The poem ‘queers in hell is a return to the classics’ is a playful reframing and reclaiming of the idea of ‘going to hell’ as a safe space for the GLBTQI+ community to express their desires and wear fabulous red costumes, while enjoying Lil Nas X performances. While ‘mardi gras rainbow dreaming’ looks at the contradiction of “black queer liberation on land stolen” and how big brands “wrap up your bigotry in glitter and call it progress for a weekend”.
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There are so many moving stories, impactful truths and deep layers of meaning and feelings encompassed in each poem and across this small but powerful and stirring collection – you’ll want to read and reread mark the dawn repeatedly and “everywhen”.
mark the dawn, Jazz Money
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Format: Paperback
Pages: 81 pages
Publication: 30 July 2024
RRP: $24.99
