False Claims of Colonial Thieves

by Charmaine Papertalk Green, John Kinsella

‘A gentle whisper from the past Visits me in my dreams Or is it the future that I see ... ’ From well-known poets John Kinsella and Charmaine Papertalk-Green comes a tête-à-tête that is powerful, thought provoking, and challenges what we think we know about our country, colonisation, and how we understand our land. Striking conversations surrounding childhood, life, love, mining, death, respect, and diversity; imbued by silken Yamatji sensibility and sublimely responded to by the son of a foreman from South Champion Mine. This extraordinary publication weaves two differing points of view together as Papertalk-Green and Kinsella’s words traverse this land and reflect back to us all, our many identities and quiet voices.

Genres: Poetry, Australia, Indigenous, Nonfiction

170 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 26, 2018

Reviews

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this is a little like eavesdropping on a conversation - while at times the poems stand relatively alone, most of the time to resonate off each other, discussing an interwined history. It is both very specific - much of the focus is on their shared place of childhood and the differing and not-so-differing perspectives on it - and a more general conversation about settlers and owners. It's a rich experience, sometimes wry, often laugh out loud funny, then sad and frequently angry. I have a bunch of quotes to use, but all feel like stripped of context they will also be stripped of meaning, so you'll have to read it for yourself.

[Heather Taylor-Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a significant book that shows us what reconciliation means through example. In laying down two perspectives on land and culture side by side through two disparate voices, Papertalk Green and Kinsella trade in honesty and conviction, their poetry reflecting what is fragile about us as Australians, as people, their intention strong and assured.

[Jamie Hayward · Rating 5 out of 5]

I definitely didn't give this the time it deserved and I want to go back to it but it was so incredible

[Nalini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know why, as a kid, I’d put a library book back on the shelf if I saw it was written by an Australian. These days, I’m ashamed about how little I know about Australian culture - the real Australian culture. The first step to reconciliation is education, and this book is doing what it should be.

[Sue Hatton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Kinsella’s work but teamed with the bright honesty of Paperbark Green- this anthology is forthright, colorful and perceptive. I read it for my Yr 11 English class- only 5 pieces but ended up reading the entire work.

[˙⋆✮ tish ✮⋆˙ · Rating 4 out of 5]

#schoolbook

[Final Draft · Rating 5 out of 5]

False Claims of Colonial Thieves
‘False Claims of Colonial Thieves’ is a collection of poetry from two authors; Charmaine Papertalk Green and John Kinsella. Charmaine Papertalk-Green is a visual artist, poet and writer. She is a member of the Wajarri and Badimaya cultural groups from the Yamaji Nation of Western Australia. John Kinsella is a poet, novelist, editor and critic. He was born in Perth and is adjunct professor at Edith Cowan university in WA.
False Claims of Colonial Thieves is a conversation in poetry between Papertalk Green and Kinsella, exploring their shared world around Western Australia’s Geraldton region, and their perspectives on the impact of invasion and colonisation across their history and into the present.
As you might guess from the title, this collection pulls no punches in taking on the legacy of invasion to the people and the landscape of Western Australia. It’s no pity party either as both Papertalk Green and Kinsella decry the damage done to land and culture, but celebrate the endurance and strength of both as well.
As we go I’d like to take some selections from the poems that illustrate the collection and I’d like to acknowledge that I am quoting Papertalk Green and Kinsella’s work but do not presume to appropriate their voice.
The collection takes on important contemporary topics of land use and environmental degradation, destruction of traditional cultures and cultural appropriation, as well as the impact on community of dispossession and drug use.
It would be difficult to pay full tribute to the breadth and depth of the work and it’s not really my place as both Papertalk Green and Kinsella explore these topics through the subject matter, but also the lyricism and style with which each piece is created.
They carefully craft a space for voice and recognition. In her poem ‘Don’t Want Me To Talk’, Papertalk Green explores the silencing and marginalising of voices of dissent. She challenges the dominance of whiteness, and it’s tactic of becoming invisible by assuming it is the only way of being…
“You don't want me to talk about
Mining or its impact on country
You don’t want me to talk about
The concept and construct of whiteness
It’s dominance and power in society…”
Then later she goes on to observe...
“You don’t want me to talk about
How I have got a voice
And you don’t listen”
Later in ‘I won’t pretend’, Papertalk Green celebrates the possibility of working together in an ‘intercultural space’ to acknowledge and inspire each other without one taking over the other.
Both poets mourn the destruction of land and culture in the call and response sections of the poem ‘Hawes - God’s Intruder’. The poem delves into the history and impact of the construction of th St Francis Xavier cathedral in Geraldton. The cathedral was built on significant land and Papertalk Green reflects
“A place of living
A place of our ceremonies
Long Before it was
called Mass Rock
Hawes, God’s Intruder.”
Here lies the power of this collection; to reflect and then evoke the beauty as well as the pain of history destroyed and recreated. Both poets show us that culture lives on in all these spaces, and that traditional ties to the land are not easily extinguished.
The language and the imagery is a necessary bloodletting and it seems to me that many more are coming before we will be able to come together as a nation. But in the reading of False Claims of Colonial Thieves I believe we are able to begin to understand why this process is necessary. The poets are keen eyed in their observations and allow us an opportunity to see our historical wrongs, but also understand that we have a role in coming together.
I’ll leave you with the ending of John Kinsella’s poem ‘Yarn Response’
“This is yarning, too, Charmaine
And I take my cue from you
And celebrate the back and forth,
Even a bit of overtalking!”
Loved this review?
You can get more books, writing and literary culture every week on the Final Draft Great Conversations podcast. Hear interviews with authors and discover your next favourite read!
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[Madelaine Dickie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In your name crimes beyond imagining would have been committed

**This review was first published in National Indigenous Times on October 31, 2018**
https://nit.com.au/in-your-name-crime...

False Claims of Colonial Thieves starts with mining. Charmaine Papertalk Green reflects on her grandmother, glad that the only mining she knew was the mining of ochre for body and hair during ceremony. She reflects on the mountains that disappear and turn into cars; on the contemporary mechanical mine dream time animals.

This is Western Australia, depicted with great heart by the Yamaji poet and artist, who writes alongside celebrated WA poet John Kinsella. Kinsella and Green call to each other across cultures, seeking ‘a third space’ where black and white Australians can truth tell and share stories about our country and our history.

There’s light and shade: in one breath, Green shows us her ancestral lands singing with wildflowers, in another, we learn of the rainbow serpent, choking on salt and sliding elsewhere to seek freshwater. She takes us to Geraldton, where three Yamaji women perform an ‘unwelcome’ to country for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, and to the airspace above Wadjemup, where a ‘masterclass in amnesia’ means many tourists mistake it for a prettied-up holiday place, unaware of the spirits of the dead, unaware that they sleep on unmarked graves.

With these poems, Charmaine Green extends her hand to whitefellas, says: walk with me, let me show you another side to WA, let me share with you our colonial history, let me share with you the bearing of those past thieves on the present—the churches on ancient campsites, the racism, the wicked witches of the drug world ruining our beautiful, strong young people.

Kinsella takes the offered hand.

He tells us his grandmother ‘watched the blackfellas’ through hessian curtins, watched as they went beyond the town limits.

… out there was a truth she knew
was so close to home, if only
she understood how to see.

There’s a yearning in this—a yearning to understand. We find it again when Kinsella sketches the house of some whitefellas: there’s a carved emu egg, a boab and a Namitjira hanging alongside the footy pennants. Under the murk of the whitefella’s talk, something’s happening, something’s changing, an axis has shifted, attitudes are shifting.

They need to: Kinsella is unsparing and despairing in his depictions of racism. Some of the people in his poems are actively, viciously racist. We meet a group of vigilantes ready to shoot up a tin shack at the edge of town late at night. When Kinsella tries to stop them, they hunt him—he hides in the bush until daylight. We meet police in Geraldton that turn up the night of a fight. Kinsella’s wearing chips of blue metal in his scalp, his face is mush, he’s been beaten up by another whitefella. But the cops don’t want to hear that. They want to know which blackfella did it. The only blackfella at the scene, a Yamaji man, tried to break up the fight. Years later, the Yamaji man saw Kinsella said,

You’re a legend, bro – we –

we – know you didn’t tell the cops anything. I know you kept me out of it.

If you hadn’t, my whole family
would have paid and would still
be paying. In your name crimes
beyond imagining would

have been committed.

False Claims of Colonial Thieves offers a masterclass in remembering and a shout above the roar of the mining trucks. It turns a bright spotty on racism and holds the colonial thieves accountable. It’s a must read for Western Australians and for anyone who doubts the necessity of a truth telling commission. A fabulous collaboration by two important Western Australian poets, False Claims of Colonial Thieves was published by Magabala Books earlier this year and can be purchased at www.magabala.com or at any good bookshop.

By Madelaine Dickie

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this co-written collection of poetry. John Kinsella is one of Australia's best poets and his back and forth with Yamaji artist and poet Charmaine Papertalk Green is absorbing. They have distinct styles and viewpoints but plenty to say to each other and to readers.

[Jade Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confronting, but necessary assessment of the colonial impact on Australia, written by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors. While the poetry format allows for a back and forth between the two, and I enjoyed the subject material, poetry just isn’t for me.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

A necessary read for those wanting to educate themselves on this country's past.

[Molly T · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Ashley T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Angry, immediate, essential reading. Should be in every school.

[Emma Balkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting call and response style of poetry by two indigenous Australians.

[Beckyjmcc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend this

[Adele Wyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is difficult to rate or review any work with multiple authors, and I think that it doubly so for poetry. There will inevitably be those poems that touch the soul, those that prompt a debate, those that open new windows, and those that don't quite manage any of the above. Those that are lost to you. And this collection was no different for me.

I will say that I struggled with the first few, to join the stream of their rhythm as a duo of poets. Or perhaps they were struggling to find their rhythm too, and my response mirrored that. Either way, I found that as the work progressed, I became more engrossed. The poems I most thoroughly enjoyed and rated most highly were the ones where the poets responded and reacted to each other. It mimicked a dance of thought and emotion, and it was a pity that this method was not utilised more often, to more effect.

I did also find that the most powerful of the poems were the ones I least expected, such as Yarn. A lot of them were about mining and the environment, and there was the risk of repetition (which many Yr 12 students who are studying this have also felt0, but there is a greater variety of theme here, and it was the non-mining ones that spoke to me the most. I cannot remember them all now, but intend to one day update this review when I reread and re-identify the ones I want to discuss.

The only other comment I can make is that it was not always apparent who the poet was. There was no clear alternating structure that helped you plan who it would be, and often the voices and subject matter were not distinct enough to easily differentiate without looking for the initials at the end. This increased my confusion and lessened the impact of the work when I was reading it - a simple change to put the initials at the start of the poem would have made a considerable difference. This could have been a stylistic choice of course, to highlight their similarity of thought and experience, but that didn't seem to be the point of the collaboration, and if it was, some explanation of that fact at the start would have been much appreciated.

[Calvin Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of poetry presents an important examination of Australian identity through dialogue between two very different poets, each with an individual style and perspective. It presents uncomfortable ideas about history, identity, environment and national priorities, which are vital to consider precisely because they are sometimes uncomfortable. I found the poems of Charmaine Papertalk Green particularly accessible and poignant, presenting an indigenous perspective on modern Australia, informed by tradition, history and trauma. The poems of Jeff Kinsella also present significant ideas, though I often found his writing to be more difficult to access and complex, requiring more careful reading and re-reading. The key selling point of the collection - and its most intriguing feature - is the way that the works of these two poets play off each other, sometimes in direct response, sometimes as differing perspectives. This is certainly a collection that would stand up to repeated readings, analysis and thoughtful debate.

[han⚢ · Rating 4 out of 5]

would strongly recommend every australian to read this