Margaret Ann Woods, a Ngarrindjeri Kaurna woman from South Australia, inspired many writers and readers throughout her long career as a writer/poet. As probably the first South Australian Aboriginal female writer to be published, she was a pioneer in First Nations Australia literature in that state; following in the footsteps of her relative David Unaipon.
Margaret wrote poetry and prose, and had over 61 works published. She is fondly remembered by many people, due to school visits where she shared stories of her Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna culture, and helped young people develop an interest in writing and reading.
In 1997, Margaret worked in prisons with prisoners to develop works that were presented at the 1998 Festival Fringe. In 1999 she was given an Indigenous Award by the Port Adelaide Enfield Council in Recognition of Contribution to the Arts.
Gerry Bostock, a Bundjalung man, was an Aboriginal healer from New South Wales. In 1972, Gerry Bostock participated in the political struggle surrounding the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra. He helped establish the Black Theatre in Sydney.
Gerry wrote the poem ‘Black Children’ which was later published in Black Man Coming (1980). Gerry found it hard to get his poetry published, so when he wrote his play ‘Here Comes the Nigger’ in 1974, he included a poem because he felt it was the only way his poetry could be shared with the public.
Joining Film Australia in 1977, Gerry began working in film production, research and as an assistant on documentary films. Gerry and his brother Lester Bostock were the co-founders of Kuri Productions in 1985. His experience as a playwright gave him the opportunity to lead a practical workshop in the Our Words – Our Ways: National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers Workshop.
In 1994 and 1995, Gerry sat on the Sydney Writers’ Festival Committee. He was a panellist for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre: On the Edge during the 1995 Festival.
On the fourth day of the New Year, Australia lost one of its most respected Aboriginal women, Aunty Maureen Watson. Tireless educator and campaigner for the rights of her people, gifted and passionate performer on stage and film, poet, author and playwright, children’s author, beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, and recognised Murri elder in South-East Queensland.
Maureen was a founding member of Indigenous organisations that include Radio Redfern and the Aboriginal people’s Gallery. She attended the first National Aboriginal Theatre Workshop in Sydney and a Black Film-makers course. Her first collection of stories and poems, Black Reflections was published in 1982 – she went on to produce six more poetry anthologies, one children’s book and one picture book. She has performed and taught in many venues, from major festivals to local schools and arts organisations.
She was at the forefront of Aboriginal protests against the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane in 1982, facing arrest during demonstrations. In 1996 she was awarded the Australia Council Red Ochre award in recognition of her national and international contribution towards recognition of Aboriginal arts. Also she received the inaugural United Nations Association Global Leadership Prize for her outstanding work towards building cross-cultural understanding and harmony.
Lisa was an Aboriginal Australian poet, photographer, activist, spokeswoman, dramatist, comedian and broadcaster. She was a Goernpil woman of the Noonuccal people of Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Queensland. Lisa died unexpectedly at her home in Melbourne. She was 45 years old.
She wrote Dreaming In Urban Areas (UQP, 1996), a book of poetry which explores the experience of Aboriginal people in contemporary society. She was awarded the Deadly prize in 2006 for making an outstanding contribution to literature with her play The Dirty Mile: A History of Indigenous Fizroy, a suburb of Melbourne. Bellear was a prolific photographer. Her work was exhibited at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and at the Melbourne Museum as part of their millennium celebrations.
She was also a founding member of the Ilbijerri Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-op, the longest-running Aboriginal theatre troupe in Australia.
A Wiradjuri warrior Kevin was a tireless advocate for Aboriginal rights. He became the first Aboriginal playwright with The Cherry Pickers. Kevin wrote many books Because a White man’ll Never Do It, Living Black, Aboriginal Sovereignty, Justice, the Law and Land (including Draft Treaty) and Child’s Dreaming.
His anthology Inside Black Australia, won the 1988 Human Rights Award for Literature, but Kevin publicly refused it. In 1995 he was posthumously presented the RAKA poetry award for Black from the Edge. Me and Mary Kangaroo, was short listed for the 1995 Australian Multicultural Award.
In 1992 he was awarded a Creative Arts Fellowship for his ‘outstanding artistic contribution to the nation’ but passed away in 1993.
Permission from Kevin Gilbert family
Peer into the campfire
Peer into the campfire
in the heart of the coals and see
I am and you – a stranger
is also here with me
existing in our space and time
and each unmeasured pace
with every spark and glowing beam
I scan the stranger’s face
to find their eyes, their ears, their soul
regardless of their race
I am and nothing cancels out
the fact and truth, my being
my very words in molecules
course signals in your brain
I am and you are with me
though finite it may seem
no longer strangers we have met
in this primordial dream
the ashes sifting slowly
reveal the orbs of heat
it’s me, we’re free
past barriers of the brain
and trampling feet.
Jack was born in Perth and became an activist on behalf of his people and from 1967–71 was director of the Aboriginal Centre in Perth. In 1971 he was chairman of the Aboriginal Lands Trust in WA and was managing editor of the Aboriginal cultural magazine Identity in the Aboriginal Publications Foundation.
In 1979 his first full-length play Kullark, was a documentary on the history of Aborigines in WA. Other plays published by Currency include No Sugar, The Dreamers, Barungin: Smell the Wind, In Our Town and for younger audiences, Honey Spot and Moorli and the Leprechaun.
In 1977, he received the British Empire Medal and in 1985 received the Order of Australia. He received the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award, an Hon. D.Litt. from Murdoch University and was elected Citizen of the Year in WA. In 1989 Davis received a Creative Fellowships.
Sourced from the National Museum of Australia.
Aboriginal Australia
To the Others
You once smiled a friendly smile,
Said we were kin to one another,
Thus with guile for a short while
Became to me a brother.
Then you swamped my way of gladness,
Took my children from my side,
Snapped shut the law book, oh my sadness
At Yirrakalas’ plea denied.
So, I remember Lake George hills,
The thin stick bones of people.
Sudden death, and greed that kills,
That gave you church and steeple.
I cry again for Warrarra men,
Gone from kith and kind,
And I wondered when I would find a pen
To probe your freckled mind.
I mourned again for the Murray tribe,
Gone too without a trace.
I thought of the soldier’s diatribe,
The smile on the governor’s face.
You murdered me with rope, with gun
The massacre of my enclave,
You buried me deep on McLarty’s run
Flung into a common grave.
You propped me up with Christ, red tape,
Tobacco, grog and fears,
Then disease and lordly rape
Through the brutish years.
Now you primly say you’re justified,
And sing of a nation’s glory,
But I think of a people crucified –
The real Australian story.
Sourced: Poemhunter.com
During the 1960s she emerged as a prominent political activist and writer. She was Queensland state secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI),and was involved in a number of other political organisations. She was a key figure in the campaign for the reform of the Australian constitution to allow Aboriginal people full citizenship.
She wrote many books, beginning with We Are Going (1964), the first book to be published by an Aboriginal woman.
Oodgeroo won several literary awards, including the Mary Gilmore Medal (1970), the Jessie Litchfield Award (1975), and the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Award.
She was awarded an MBE in 1970, returning it in 1987 to protest the Australian Bicentenary celebrations, and to make a political statement at the condition of her people.
Sourced from the Australian Poetry Library
We Are Going
They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent
All that remained of their tribe.
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.
Notice of the estate agent reads: ‘Rubbish May Be Tipped Here’.
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.
‘We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.
We belong here, we are of the old ways.
We are the corroboree and the bora ground,
We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders.
We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires.
We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill
Quick and terrible,
And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow.
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.
We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.
We are nature and the past, all the old ways
Gone now and scattered.
The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.
The bora ring is gone.
The corroboree is gone.
And we are going.’
