In 2026 I completed Bonny Cassidy’s workshop series “Who’s afraid of Country?”.
The title of the workshop references Edward Albee’s 1962 play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Barnett Newman’s 1966 exhibition Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue? or perhaps the folklore tale Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?. In each iteration of the title the subject (Virginia Wolfe, red yellow and blue) refers to something raw or stark or without pretence that the artist may fear due to exposure of self. To engage with the subject is to engage with a fundamental shift of self. The workshop asks writers to face up to the fear and challenge of writing as colonial occupiers of Country.
This poem is my response to the workshop, and explores the language of temporality and decolonial study in Australia.
Hover over the dots to read the poem.
Ngunnawal Country
As a colonist and a white woman, at times I struggle to continue to believe in the importance or significance of publishing or performing my poetry. I still write, I still read, and I still love poetry, but I do think that white women have taken up a lot of space in publishing and in performance that would be better filled with work from people with different backgrounds and experiences. Of course, white men have taken the lion’s share either way.
In service of trying to find my way through this block which has lasted many years now, I have looked to other colonists who I think are doing good work. I did a series of editing and mentorship sessions with Tim Loveday in 2025 and he linked me to Bonny Cassidy. Who I then went on to read and study.
Bonny’s method for writing her book monument was to follow her own family history on this continent through the Countries of many Aboriginal peoples. John Kinsella described it as “an undoing that doesn’t claim a reconstitution.”
I had already started a similar process to understand what each of my ancestors did on this land. My research isn’t complete, but I do have a profile for every person and a bit of information to follow. This is where my artistic inquiry sits at the moment, an uncoiling of my own family history on Country.
Screenshots of research organisation