Archival-Poetics is a book of poetry by the Australian poet and Narungga woman Natalie Harkin. It was first published in 2019 by Vagabond Press.
 | |
| Author | Natalie Harkin |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Vagabond Press |
Publication date | 2019 |
| Awards | Kate Challis RAKA Award |
It won the Kate Challis RAKA Award in 2020.
About the work
editArchival-Poetics is inspired by letters written by Harkin's grandmother and other family members. The letters were kept in the South Australia's Aboriginal Records archive. The poetry collection consists of three chapbooks in a slipcase, where each chapbook's cover shows an image from a performance by Harkin titled Archive-Fever-Paradox.[1] The book is "a collage of archival extracts together with the writer's poetry, artwork, weaving and installation photo-stills", a form of docu-poetry.[2]
Rather than a family memoir, Archival-Poetics "re-enacts the experience of confronting the record, with its heart-stopping shocks of finding her loved ones negated".[1]
Reception
editThe book won the Kate Challis RAKA Award in 2020.[3] It received positive reviews in several literary journals.[4][5][6]
References
edit- ^ a b Prendergast, Mark (31 March 2020). "A deep archive: the docupoetry of Jeanine Leane & Natalie Harkin: Mark Prendergast reviews 'Walk Back Over' by Jeanine Leane and 'Archival-Poetics' by Natalie Harkin". Rochford Street Review. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
- ^ Arnold, Chris (22 October 2020). "Review of 'Archival-Poetics' by Natalie Harkin". Westerly Magazine. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
- ^ Kevey, Donna (23 February 2022). "Reckoning with Australia's colonial archive: poet Natalie Harkin wins RAKA Prize". Newsroom. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
- ^ Sentance, Nathan (18 September 2019). "Disrupting the Colonial Archive | Nathan Sentance on Natalie Harkin". Sydney Review of Books. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
- ^ Bourke, Gabriela (1 June 2020). "Gabriela Bourke reviews Archival Poetics by Natalie Harkin". Mascara Literary Review. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
- ^ Anderson, Susie (11 November 2019). "Close reading the colonial archive". Overland. Retrieved 4 March 2024.