This entry is part of a series, Unlocked» Unlocked is an educational program developed and run by The Red Room Company in collaboration with NSW Correctional Centres. The program aims to unlock the potential of inmates through the transformative possibilities of poetry. Australian poets are taken into the centres to run intensive writing workshops, working with the students on every stage of the writing process, from the initial exercises and experimentations, through the editing and rewriting process, to recording, performing and publishing their work in a professionally designed print anthology. You can . Piloted in Sydney in 2010, the project has now entered its third year. The most recent Unlocked project was held at the Balund-a Project, a residential diversionary program for male and female offenders between 18 and 40. The program has a strong Indigenous focus, which is also a focus for Unlocked for 2012. Indigenous poet Lionel Fogarty [...]
This entry is part of a series, The Disappearing» Rouse Hill Time travelling on the motorways we watch the landscape change as cramped steel and concrete give way to open space Somehow bare and more exposed Billboards tout BRAND NEW LUXURY HOMES carbon copies of a pre-packaged urban dream past the outback steakhouse past the golden arches Flying high in this distant corner of the empire At our destination vivid white and yellow in the trees A row of cockatoos observes what’s on offer making selections from a drive through menu of their own On the old Windsor Turnpike I look across at Bunnings and realise I’m standing on the front line a battle between past and present History holding the line as the machine of progress threatens to swallow it whole The smell of death lingers on the property rabbits drowned in the heavy rain mosquitoes buzzing Life and [...]