The power of digital poetry

At last month’s Perth Festival Writers Week in Boorloo/Perth, I began my Tiny Little Digital Poetry workshop with the following:

Given Perth Festival Writers Weekend brings writers and readers together in a colonial city built on unceded Noongar Boodja, it’s impossible as a guest writer not to acknowledge that our writing colleagues here and overseas are currently being killed, threatened and censored at unprecedented rates.

This includes: more than 100 Palestinian and multi-national journalists killed by Israel in the last few months alone – the largest number in the history of modern warfare; the ongoing incarceration of Julian Assange for reporting on another unjust military incursion; the recent sentencing of Australian journalist Yang Hengjun to death in China; and artists, writers, actors, academics and journalists here in Australia who have been fired or denied work, censored or censured for expressing their support for Palestine.

This may feel like an overtly political way to begin a writing workshop. But writing – like all art – is inherently political: in who’s stories get told, who tells them and how, in who decides, and who gets to access them. Which makes social media and other digital platforms inherently political too, including how platforms are monitored, censored and controlled.

We are all here because we love writing, so I cannot imagine there being any disagreement on the principles at heart of all of these big issues: That writers have a right to life and livelihood. That their stories are important and necessary. And that if we want to be safe and for our stories to be told, we have an obligation to fight for those same rights for others too.

I was grateful to be able to point to powerful, of-the-moment examples from Omar Sakr, Rupi Kaur and Rafaat Alareer (even as we mourn his horrific loss – vale vale vale). And delighted to see participants getting onboard (and online) in celebration of the immediacy, politics and possibilities of digital poetry. Give Julz, Malissa, Melissa, Sky and Ash a follow for more.

Collage of two social media posts thanking Kate for the workshop

If you’re in a position to do so, you can donate to the Gaza Journalists Appeal via the MEAA website.

Further reading: Palestine as a governance issue

You can check out all of the articles and resources in this series, which include:

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Author: katelarsenkeys

Writer. Rabble-rouser. Arts, Cultural and Non-Profit Consultant.