Making Sense of Noise \u2013 A Symphony for Voices<\/h1>\nMary-Rose McLaren<\/div>\n\n\nThis paper uses original and found poetry to shape the soundscape of 2020 into meaning. A critical auto-ethnographic study, it uses poetic strategies of arts-based methodology to weave stories, experiences and impressions together, to create a literary fabric of the year. So doing, it creates a choral piece for the spoken voice, which explores ideas of conspiracy, community, racism, oppression and justice, drawing on the author\u2019s experience in Australia, and connection with the wider world via the internet. Its focus on listening as meaning is formed from competing and contesting voices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nCet article utilise une po\u00e9sie originale et trouv\u00e9e pour fa\u00e7onner le paysage sonore de 2020. Une \u00e9tude auto-ethnographique critique, il utilise des strat\u00e9gies po\u00e9tiques de m\u00e9thodologie bas\u00e9e sur les arts pour tisser des histoires, des exp\u00e9riences et des impressions ensemble, pour cr\u00e9er un tissu litt\u00e9raire de l\u2019ann\u00e9e. Ce faisant, il cr\u00e9e une pi\u00e8ce de chorale pour la voix parl\u00e9e, qui explore les id\u00e9es de complot, de communaut\u00e9, de racisme, d\u2019oppression et de justice, en s\u2019appuyant sur l\u2019exp\u00e9rience de l\u2019auteur en Australie et sur la connexion avec le monde entier via Internet. Son accent est mis sur l\u2019\u00e9coute car le sens se forme \u00e0 partir de voix concurrentes et contestataires.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
\nIntroduction1<\/sup><\/a><\/h2>\nT<\/span>he year 2020 began in Australia (where I live) with what Professor John Shine, President of the Australian Academy of Science, called \u201cunprecedented\u201d bush fires.2<\/sup><\/a> From fires, Australia lurched into pandemic (not quite unprecedented, because humanity had experienced the Spanish flu of 1918-20). From there, many Australians protested in support of Black Lives Matter\u2014precipitated by the murder of George Floyd, but in response to generations of racism, oppression, and brutality the world over. Severe economic downturn, the emboldening of white supremacy, and more \u201cunprecedented\u201d wild fires in California (this time identified as such by Frank Lake, a U.S. Forest Service research ecologist3<\/sup><\/a>), bring me to September 2020, when this paper is written. This year taught me to listen differently. Previously, I would have filtered out so much of this information and opinion; I would have dismissed it as the noise of daily life. But in 2020 this \u2018noise\u2019 connected me across the ether with family and friends around the world through a shared sense of trauma and anxiety, and shared fixations on numbers and daily reports. In amongst the bombardment of news, when listening differently, I heard things I had previously ignored. The slowing and stilling of my daily life was counter-balanced by my increasing engagement with the world via the internet. The following is my attempt to make sense of the cacophony of sound, the competing voices and ideas that are the noisescape of 2020. This critical autoethnographic study uses poetic strategies of arts-based methodology to weave stories, experiences, and impressions together to create a literary fabric of the year. Poetry as research method, and as qualitative analysis and representation, is explored by Sandra L Faulkner (2017). She observes that poetry \u201cshows, rather than tells, our human mysteries, triumphs, and foibles\u201d (209). In choosing this form, I have sought to give the reader an embodied experience, taking them inside the moment of expression through the physical formation of sounds, the articulating of the words of others. This is consistent with William Faulkner\u2019s understanding that:<\/p>\n\u201cPoetry can help us see a relationship bleeding out, haemorrhaging from the inside, spilling outside the neat axioms of theory. Poetry can have us experience the social structures and ruptures in situ<\/em> as we read, as we listen, as we hold our breath waiting for the next line.\u201d (222)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nConsequently, poetry as inquiry and research can offer transformative experiences to the reader (and writer), \u201cby providing new insight, giving perspective, and\/or advocating for social change\u201d (227). Consistent with this viewpoint, Hodge (2017) suggests that the nature of the critical reflection made possible through poetry offers \u201cspace to voice-silenced traumas\u201d (11), that through poetry, one might enter vicariously into the lived experience of another person.<\/p>\n
The following poetry is constructed in two different forms. The first is free verse, in my own words, appearing in the left-hand column. The second is found poetry, appearing in the right-hand column. Found poetry is constructed by selecting words and phrases from longer, often prose texts, such as interview transcripts or narrative accounts. Lisa D. Patrick (2016) distinguishes between these two forms of poetry in her own research poem about poetry as methodology:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cResearch poets<\/p>\n
refashion and reorder data,<\/p>\n
presenting it as a poem . . .<\/p>\n
crafting original poetry<\/p>\n
in the voice of the researcher,<\/p>\n
crafting found poetry
\nin the voice of the participant.\u201d (Patrick 386)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The found poetry in the work below is drawn from transcripts of interviews, newspaper articles, opinion pieces, speeches by public figures and by activists at rallies, websites, songs, banners, and advertising material. The references for these, and where necessary the explanations, can be found in the endnotes. Although at times these words have been repeated or constructed into poetic form, they have not been altered from the original. Patrick goes on to discuss the \u201ctransaction\u201d (387) between reader and text, and the ways in which found poetry facilitates this. One of the significant impacts of using found poetry in a project such as this one is the explicit way it identifies my interpretative role in the process of inquiry. By placing my own poetry alongside found poetry, each reflects on, and informs, the other. At times these two forms intersect and become interwoven. In order to keep the distinction between my own words and the found poetry clear, my own words always appear in italics. Occasionally there are italicised words in amongst the found poetry in the right-hand column. These are my words, added in order to move the found poetry along, make connections, or develop the aesthetics.<\/p>\n
A significant challenge in writing this piece has been identifying my own standpoint. My aim in the found poetry has been to amplify voices, not to take them or control them. I am a white, middle-aged woman. While I can feel shocked, diminished, and enraged by the stories of marginalised, silenced, and oppressed people, I can never know their lived experiences. I hope this work honours those voices and adds to the calls for justice in our world. Amongst the found poetry you will also find the competing voices of the privileged. I place them there to contextualise the voices they silence, and to implicitly offer critique of them. Doing so creates contested space on the page, and is a reminder of the clash of values being played out in the choices people make. You may wonder how I selected the voices I did. I used the open architecture of the internet to guide me: I started with word searches on Google and You Tube and simply followed links. I found myself delving further and further into sites I would never normally have accessed, and hearing the ideas and opinions of people whose world perceptions are very different from my own. Following links on YouTube takes the viewer to varied places, where words shift meaning according to context. At the time this poem was written, \u201cflattening the curve\u201d took me from coronavirus to body image, which reminded me, in turn, of Donald Trump\u2019s perceptions of, and desire to control, the female body. Some months later, as I review this paper, \u201cflattening the curve\u201d takes the viewer straight to conspiracy theories. I also followed links through newspaper sites; sometimes I saw images or heard or read words that resonated, and which I then specifically sought out. George Floyd\u2019s last words\u2014\u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d\u2014are an example of this. I knew they were also the last words of Aboriginal Australian David Dungay Jr, who died in police custody in 2015. The intersection of breath across the experience of COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the experience of Indigenous peoples in Australia, was one route through my 2020.<\/p>\n
One last point about the writing: the success of any work lies in its reader or listener being able to move in, out, and through it; to engage in emotional intensity and pull back and view objectively. For this reason, not all elements of the work are deeply serious. However, all reflect on the bombardment by social and political noise that has occurred during lockdown and pandemic; and on my personal growing awareness of the pain that some of us inflict, wittingly or not, on others. The Melbourne lockdown was one of the strictest and longest in the world.4<\/sup><\/a> Initial restrictions were introduced on March 16. Stage four restrictions, which included an 8:00 pm curfew, masks, and limiting time outside the house to one hour a day, commenced on August 2 and continued into late October. During this time the noise of aeroplanes overhead, and cars on the road, almost disappeared. But the noise of the internet, the main communication outside the home, became louder and louder. I have tried to capture that sense of loud, competing, noise outside of my own experience. In this work it is my intention to amplify the voices of oppressed people, never to trivialise them. I sincerely hope this work is read in that way.<\/p>\nThe creation of this piece has been an exercise in embodied writing. I selected words because they generated a visceral response. I have sought to communicate this viscerality in the use of rhythms and repetition. Because music is meaning made from noise, I have taken a musical motif\u2014the symphony\u2014and redesigned it for the spoken word. It is designed to be read aloud by numerous voices\u2014sometimes in unison, sometimes overlapping or echoing each other, at other times challenging each other. There are several ways you can read this work: down one column and then the other; across the page; or moving between columns by stanza or movement. Each of these ways will give a different sense to the work. I encourage you to read it aloud and to experiment with the process of reading that speaks best to you. My own preference is to read across the page.<\/p>\n
First Movement
\nSonata: Exposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nI am making sense<\/em><\/p>\nMade sense sense made<\/em><\/p>\nSense in the Making<\/em><\/p>\nI am trying<\/em><\/p>\nTo make Sense.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
To Sense:<\/em><\/p>\nTo feel, touch, hold, smell<\/em><\/p>\nto breathe in the rancid<\/em><\/p>\nand the scented<\/em><\/p>\nto taste in the air<\/em><\/p>\nand on the tongue<\/em><\/p>\nto know the passage of Time<\/em><\/p>\nto hear the cries of abandonment<\/em><\/p>\nto listen for Hope<\/em><\/p>\nto be deaf.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
To see<\/em><\/p>\nto envisage, imagine, dream,<\/em><\/p>\nto make art<\/em><\/p>\nto find<\/em><\/p>\nthe current that tumbles tidelike<\/em><\/p>\ninto and out of the Mind.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
To use senses to make Sense.<\/em><\/p>\nMy sense<\/em><\/p>\nOur sense<\/em><\/p>\nCommon sense<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We must remember to protect ourselves<\/p>\n
from people<\/p>\n
who choose to not engage<\/p>\n
in the critical act of<\/p>\n
thinking.5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nThinking<\/p>\n
Thinking<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t like how my chances of<\/p>\n
survival<\/p>\n
are linked to<\/p>\n
the common sense of<\/p>\n
others6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAnd yet\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe fire the smoke<\/em><\/p>\nthe blast of taser<\/em><\/p>\nthe car horns<\/em><\/p>\nthe missiles, rocks<\/em><\/p>\nthe calling of names<\/em><\/p>\nthe hiding in bunkers<\/em><\/p>\nthe blaming and cursing<\/em><\/p>\nthe crying out<\/em><\/p>\nthe penting up<\/em><\/p>\nthe years of sin that lie on the land<\/em><\/p>\nthe blood seeping into soil<\/em><\/p>\nand bitumen<\/em><\/p>\nlying in red coagulating puddles<\/em><\/p>\nunder our feet<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Breaking things, breaking down<\/em><\/p>\nCracking crashing crushing<\/em><\/p>\nBut<\/em><\/p>\nIs this breaking or building?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Breaking capitalism?<\/em><\/p>\nBuilding fairness?<\/em><\/p>\nBreaking wealth?<\/em><\/p>\nBuilding Justice?<\/em><\/p>\nBreaking privilege?<\/em><\/p>\nBuilding solidarity?<\/em><\/p>\nWho controls the paradigm of<\/em><\/p>\nunderstanding?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThis is how people are actually feeling.<\/p>\n
This is temporary shit.<\/p>\n
This is our future<\/span> we stand up for<\/p>\nWe will cause a scene<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nDonald Trump spent<\/p>\n
only a \u201ctiny\u201d amount of time<\/p>\n
only a tiny<\/span> amount<\/p>\ntiny, tiny amount<\/p>\n
in\u00a0a reinforced bunker –<\/p>\n
while protesters rage<\/span><\/p>\nDonald inspects<\/p>\n
(but not for his safety)<\/p>\n
just<\/p>\n
to inspect8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nWe tried peaceful protesting<\/p>\n
and this was our last resort<\/p>\n
actions speak louder than words<\/p>\n
actions speak louder<\/p>\n
It sucks to see our city<\/p>\n
burning burning burning<\/span><\/p>\nbut they\u2019re finally listening to us.<\/p>\n
We will be heard.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fuck those media outlets<\/p>\n
They\u2019re going to<\/p>\n
portray us in a bad light<\/p>\n
Only showing what\u2019s going<\/p>\n
on over here<\/p>\n
at the end of the day9<\/sup><\/a>A bad light<\/p>\nBad<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\nShit got out of control.<\/p>\n
Shit<\/p>\n
Got<\/p>\n
Out of control10<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nthe failure to listen<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to hear<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to see<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to touch lives<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to taste the bitterness<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to smell dissent<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
the failure.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The nonSense<\/em><\/p>\nthe SenseLess<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nFuck all that talking11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nI need you to see me<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t see colour?<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t see me<\/span>.12<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Some people can\u2019t walk round without<\/p>\n
being scared<\/p>\n
that some cop<\/p>\n
is going to come to them<\/p>\n
with a<\/p>\n
This paper uses original and found poetry to shape the soundscape of 2020 into meaning. A critical auto-ethnographic study, it uses poetic strategies of arts-based methodology to weave stories, experiences and impressions together, to create a literary fabric of the year. So doing, it creates a choral piece for the spoken voice, which explores ideas of conspiracy, community, racism, oppression and justice, drawing on the author\u2019s experience in Australia, and connection with the wider world via the internet. Its focus on listening as meaning is formed from competing and contesting voices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Cet article utilise une po\u00e9sie originale et trouv\u00e9e pour fa\u00e7onner le paysage sonore de 2020. Une \u00e9tude auto-ethnographique critique, il utilise des strat\u00e9gies po\u00e9tiques de m\u00e9thodologie bas\u00e9e sur les arts pour tisser des histoires, des exp\u00e9riences et des impressions ensemble, pour cr\u00e9er un tissu litt\u00e9raire de l\u2019ann\u00e9e. Ce faisant, il cr\u00e9e une pi\u00e8ce de chorale pour la voix parl\u00e9e, qui explore les id\u00e9es de complot, de communaut\u00e9, de racisme, d\u2019oppression et de justice, en s\u2019appuyant sur l\u2019exp\u00e9rience de l\u2019auteur en Australie et sur la connexion avec le monde entier via Internet. Son accent est mis sur l\u2019\u00e9coute car le sens se forme \u00e0 partir de voix concurrentes et contestataires.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
\n
Introduction1<\/sup><\/a><\/h2>\nT<\/span>he year 2020 began in Australia (where I live) with what Professor John Shine, President of the Australian Academy of Science, called \u201cunprecedented\u201d bush fires.2<\/sup><\/a> From fires, Australia lurched into pandemic (not quite unprecedented, because humanity had experienced the Spanish flu of 1918-20). From there, many Australians protested in support of Black Lives Matter\u2014precipitated by the murder of George Floyd, but in response to generations of racism, oppression, and brutality the world over. Severe economic downturn, the emboldening of white supremacy, and more \u201cunprecedented\u201d wild fires in California (this time identified as such by Frank Lake, a U.S. Forest Service research ecologist3<\/sup><\/a>), bring me to September 2020, when this paper is written. This year taught me to listen differently. Previously, I would have filtered out so much of this information and opinion; I would have dismissed it as the noise of daily life. But in 2020 this \u2018noise\u2019 connected me across the ether with family and friends around the world through a shared sense of trauma and anxiety, and shared fixations on numbers and daily reports. In amongst the bombardment of news, when listening differently, I heard things I had previously ignored. The slowing and stilling of my daily life was counter-balanced by my increasing engagement with the world via the internet. The following is my attempt to make sense of the cacophony of sound, the competing voices and ideas that are the noisescape of 2020. This critical autoethnographic study uses poetic strategies of arts-based methodology to weave stories, experiences, and impressions together to create a literary fabric of the year. Poetry as research method, and as qualitative analysis and representation, is explored by Sandra L Faulkner (2017). She observes that poetry \u201cshows, rather than tells, our human mysteries, triumphs, and foibles\u201d (209). In choosing this form, I have sought to give the reader an embodied experience, taking them inside the moment of expression through the physical formation of sounds, the articulating of the words of others. This is consistent with William Faulkner\u2019s understanding that:<\/p>\n\u201cPoetry can help us see a relationship bleeding out, haemorrhaging from the inside, spilling outside the neat axioms of theory. Poetry can have us experience the social structures and ruptures in situ<\/em> as we read, as we listen, as we hold our breath waiting for the next line.\u201d (222)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nConsequently, poetry as inquiry and research can offer transformative experiences to the reader (and writer), \u201cby providing new insight, giving perspective, and\/or advocating for social change\u201d (227). Consistent with this viewpoint, Hodge (2017) suggests that the nature of the critical reflection made possible through poetry offers \u201cspace to voice-silenced traumas\u201d (11), that through poetry, one might enter vicariously into the lived experience of another person.<\/p>\n
The following poetry is constructed in two different forms. The first is free verse, in my own words, appearing in the left-hand column. The second is found poetry, appearing in the right-hand column. Found poetry is constructed by selecting words and phrases from longer, often prose texts, such as interview transcripts or narrative accounts. Lisa D. Patrick (2016) distinguishes between these two forms of poetry in her own research poem about poetry as methodology:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cResearch poets<\/p>\n
refashion and reorder data,<\/p>\n
presenting it as a poem . . .<\/p>\n
crafting original poetry<\/p>\n
in the voice of the researcher,<\/p>\n
crafting found poetry
\nin the voice of the participant.\u201d (Patrick 386)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The found poetry in the work below is drawn from transcripts of interviews, newspaper articles, opinion pieces, speeches by public figures and by activists at rallies, websites, songs, banners, and advertising material. The references for these, and where necessary the explanations, can be found in the endnotes. Although at times these words have been repeated or constructed into poetic form, they have not been altered from the original. Patrick goes on to discuss the \u201ctransaction\u201d (387) between reader and text, and the ways in which found poetry facilitates this. One of the significant impacts of using found poetry in a project such as this one is the explicit way it identifies my interpretative role in the process of inquiry. By placing my own poetry alongside found poetry, each reflects on, and informs, the other. At times these two forms intersect and become interwoven. In order to keep the distinction between my own words and the found poetry clear, my own words always appear in italics. Occasionally there are italicised words in amongst the found poetry in the right-hand column. These are my words, added in order to move the found poetry along, make connections, or develop the aesthetics.<\/p>\n
A significant challenge in writing this piece has been identifying my own standpoint. My aim in the found poetry has been to amplify voices, not to take them or control them. I am a white, middle-aged woman. While I can feel shocked, diminished, and enraged by the stories of marginalised, silenced, and oppressed people, I can never know their lived experiences. I hope this work honours those voices and adds to the calls for justice in our world. Amongst the found poetry you will also find the competing voices of the privileged. I place them there to contextualise the voices they silence, and to implicitly offer critique of them. Doing so creates contested space on the page, and is a reminder of the clash of values being played out in the choices people make. You may wonder how I selected the voices I did. I used the open architecture of the internet to guide me: I started with word searches on Google and You Tube and simply followed links. I found myself delving further and further into sites I would never normally have accessed, and hearing the ideas and opinions of people whose world perceptions are very different from my own. Following links on YouTube takes the viewer to varied places, where words shift meaning according to context. At the time this poem was written, \u201cflattening the curve\u201d took me from coronavirus to body image, which reminded me, in turn, of Donald Trump\u2019s perceptions of, and desire to control, the female body. Some months later, as I review this paper, \u201cflattening the curve\u201d takes the viewer straight to conspiracy theories. I also followed links through newspaper sites; sometimes I saw images or heard or read words that resonated, and which I then specifically sought out. George Floyd\u2019s last words\u2014\u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d\u2014are an example of this. I knew they were also the last words of Aboriginal Australian David Dungay Jr, who died in police custody in 2015. The intersection of breath across the experience of COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the experience of Indigenous peoples in Australia, was one route through my 2020.<\/p>\n
One last point about the writing: the success of any work lies in its reader or listener being able to move in, out, and through it; to engage in emotional intensity and pull back and view objectively. For this reason, not all elements of the work are deeply serious. However, all reflect on the bombardment by social and political noise that has occurred during lockdown and pandemic; and on my personal growing awareness of the pain that some of us inflict, wittingly or not, on others. The Melbourne lockdown was one of the strictest and longest in the world.4<\/sup><\/a> Initial restrictions were introduced on March 16. Stage four restrictions, which included an 8:00 pm curfew, masks, and limiting time outside the house to one hour a day, commenced on August 2 and continued into late October. During this time the noise of aeroplanes overhead, and cars on the road, almost disappeared. But the noise of the internet, the main communication outside the home, became louder and louder. I have tried to capture that sense of loud, competing, noise outside of my own experience. In this work it is my intention to amplify the voices of oppressed people, never to trivialise them. I sincerely hope this work is read in that way.<\/p>\nThe creation of this piece has been an exercise in embodied writing. I selected words because they generated a visceral response. I have sought to communicate this viscerality in the use of rhythms and repetition. Because music is meaning made from noise, I have taken a musical motif\u2014the symphony\u2014and redesigned it for the spoken word. It is designed to be read aloud by numerous voices\u2014sometimes in unison, sometimes overlapping or echoing each other, at other times challenging each other. There are several ways you can read this work: down one column and then the other; across the page; or moving between columns by stanza or movement. Each of these ways will give a different sense to the work. I encourage you to read it aloud and to experiment with the process of reading that speaks best to you. My own preference is to read across the page.<\/p>\n
First Movement
\nSonata: Exposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nI am making sense<\/em><\/p>\nMade sense sense made<\/em><\/p>\nSense in the Making<\/em><\/p>\nI am trying<\/em><\/p>\nTo make Sense.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
To Sense:<\/em><\/p>\nTo feel, touch, hold, smell<\/em><\/p>\nto breathe in the rancid<\/em><\/p>\nand the scented<\/em><\/p>\nto taste in the air<\/em><\/p>\nand on the tongue<\/em><\/p>\nto know the passage of Time<\/em><\/p>\nto hear the cries of abandonment<\/em><\/p>\nto listen for Hope<\/em><\/p>\nto be deaf.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
To see<\/em><\/p>\nto envisage, imagine, dream,<\/em><\/p>\nto make art<\/em><\/p>\nto find<\/em><\/p>\nthe current that tumbles tidelike<\/em><\/p>\ninto and out of the Mind.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
To use senses to make Sense.<\/em><\/p>\nMy sense<\/em><\/p>\nOur sense<\/em><\/p>\nCommon sense<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We must remember to protect ourselves<\/p>\n
from people<\/p>\n
who choose to not engage<\/p>\n
in the critical act of<\/p>\n
thinking.5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nThinking<\/p>\n
Thinking<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t like how my chances of<\/p>\n
survival<\/p>\n
are linked to<\/p>\n
the common sense of<\/p>\n
others6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAnd yet\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe fire the smoke<\/em><\/p>\nthe blast of taser<\/em><\/p>\nthe car horns<\/em><\/p>\nthe missiles, rocks<\/em><\/p>\nthe calling of names<\/em><\/p>\nthe hiding in bunkers<\/em><\/p>\nthe blaming and cursing<\/em><\/p>\nthe crying out<\/em><\/p>\nthe penting up<\/em><\/p>\nthe years of sin that lie on the land<\/em><\/p>\nthe blood seeping into soil<\/em><\/p>\nand bitumen<\/em><\/p>\nlying in red coagulating puddles<\/em><\/p>\nunder our feet<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Breaking things, breaking down<\/em><\/p>\nCracking crashing crushing<\/em><\/p>\nBut<\/em><\/p>\nIs this breaking or building?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Breaking capitalism?<\/em><\/p>\nBuilding fairness?<\/em><\/p>\nBreaking wealth?<\/em><\/p>\nBuilding Justice?<\/em><\/p>\nBreaking privilege?<\/em><\/p>\nBuilding solidarity?<\/em><\/p>\nWho controls the paradigm of<\/em><\/p>\nunderstanding?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThis is how people are actually feeling.<\/p>\n
This is temporary shit.<\/p>\n
This is our future<\/span> we stand up for<\/p>\nWe will cause a scene<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nDonald Trump spent<\/p>\n
only a \u201ctiny\u201d amount of time<\/p>\n
only a tiny<\/span> amount<\/p>\ntiny, tiny amount<\/p>\n
in\u00a0a reinforced bunker –<\/p>\n
while protesters rage<\/span><\/p>\nDonald inspects<\/p>\n
(but not for his safety)<\/p>\n
just<\/p>\n
to inspect8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nWe tried peaceful protesting<\/p>\n
and this was our last resort<\/p>\n
actions speak louder than words<\/p>\n
actions speak louder<\/p>\n
It sucks to see our city<\/p>\n
burning burning burning<\/span><\/p>\nbut they\u2019re finally listening to us.<\/p>\n
We will be heard.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fuck those media outlets<\/p>\n
They\u2019re going to<\/p>\n
portray us in a bad light<\/p>\n
Only showing what\u2019s going<\/p>\n
on over here<\/p>\n
at the end of the day9<\/sup><\/a>A bad light<\/p>\nBad<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\nShit got out of control.<\/p>\n
Shit<\/p>\n
Got<\/p>\n
Out of control10<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nthe failure to listen<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to hear<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to see<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to touch lives<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to taste the bitterness<\/em><\/p>\nthe failure to smell dissent<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
the failure.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The nonSense<\/em><\/p>\nthe SenseLess<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nFuck all that talking11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nI need you to see me<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t see colour?<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t see me<\/span>.12<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Some people can\u2019t walk round without<\/p>\n
being scared<\/p>\n
that some cop<\/p>\n
is going to come to them<\/p>\n
with a<\/p>\n
\u201cPoetry can help us see a relationship bleeding out, haemorrhaging from the inside, spilling outside the neat axioms of theory. Poetry can have us experience the social structures and ruptures in situ<\/em> as we read, as we listen, as we hold our breath waiting for the next line.\u201d (222)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Consequently, poetry as inquiry and research can offer transformative experiences to the reader (and writer), \u201cby providing new insight, giving perspective, and\/or advocating for social change\u201d (227). Consistent with this viewpoint, Hodge (2017) suggests that the nature of the critical reflection made possible through poetry offers \u201cspace to voice-silenced traumas\u201d (11), that through poetry, one might enter vicariously into the lived experience of another person.<\/p>\n
The following poetry is constructed in two different forms. The first is free verse, in my own words, appearing in the left-hand column. The second is found poetry, appearing in the right-hand column. Found poetry is constructed by selecting words and phrases from longer, often prose texts, such as interview transcripts or narrative accounts. Lisa D. Patrick (2016) distinguishes between these two forms of poetry in her own research poem about poetry as methodology:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cResearch poets<\/p>\n
refashion and reorder data,<\/p>\n
presenting it as a poem . . .<\/p>\n
crafting original poetry<\/p>\n
in the voice of the researcher,<\/p>\n
crafting found poetry
\nin the voice of the participant.\u201d (Patrick 386)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nThe found poetry in the work below is drawn from transcripts of interviews, newspaper articles, opinion pieces, speeches by public figures and by activists at rallies, websites, songs, banners, and advertising material. The references for these, and where necessary the explanations, can be found in the endnotes. Although at times these words have been repeated or constructed into poetic form, they have not been altered from the original. Patrick goes on to discuss the \u201ctransaction\u201d (387) between reader and text, and the ways in which found poetry facilitates this. One of the significant impacts of using found poetry in a project such as this one is the explicit way it identifies my interpretative role in the process of inquiry. By placing my own poetry alongside found poetry, each reflects on, and informs, the other. At times these two forms intersect and become interwoven. In order to keep the distinction between my own words and the found poetry clear, my own words always appear in italics. Occasionally there are italicised words in amongst the found poetry in the right-hand column. These are my words, added in order to move the found poetry along, make connections, or develop the aesthetics.<\/p>\n
A significant challenge in writing this piece has been identifying my own standpoint. My aim in the found poetry has been to amplify voices, not to take them or control them. I am a white, middle-aged woman. While I can feel shocked, diminished, and enraged by the stories of marginalised, silenced, and oppressed people, I can never know their lived experiences. I hope this work honours those voices and adds to the calls for justice in our world. Amongst the found poetry you will also find the competing voices of the privileged. I place them there to contextualise the voices they silence, and to implicitly offer critique of them. Doing so creates contested space on the page, and is a reminder of the clash of values being played out in the choices people make. You may wonder how I selected the voices I did. I used the open architecture of the internet to guide me: I started with word searches on Google and You Tube and simply followed links. I found myself delving further and further into sites I would never normally have accessed, and hearing the ideas and opinions of people whose world perceptions are very different from my own. Following links on YouTube takes the viewer to varied places, where words shift meaning according to context. At the time this poem was written, \u201cflattening the curve\u201d took me from coronavirus to body image, which reminded me, in turn, of Donald Trump\u2019s perceptions of, and desire to control, the female body. Some months later, as I review this paper, \u201cflattening the curve\u201d takes the viewer straight to conspiracy theories. I also followed links through newspaper sites; sometimes I saw images or heard or read words that resonated, and which I then specifically sought out. George Floyd\u2019s last words\u2014\u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d\u2014are an example of this. I knew they were also the last words of Aboriginal Australian David Dungay Jr, who died in police custody in 2015. The intersection of breath across the experience of COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the experience of Indigenous peoples in Australia, was one route through my 2020.<\/p>\n
One last point about the writing: the success of any work lies in its reader or listener being able to move in, out, and through it; to engage in emotional intensity and pull back and view objectively. For this reason, not all elements of the work are deeply serious. However, all reflect on the bombardment by social and political noise that has occurred during lockdown and pandemic; and on my personal growing awareness of the pain that some of us inflict, wittingly or not, on others. The Melbourne lockdown was one of the strictest and longest in the world.4<\/sup><\/a> Initial restrictions were introduced on March 16. Stage four restrictions, which included an 8:00 pm curfew, masks, and limiting time outside the house to one hour a day, commenced on August 2 and continued into late October. During this time the noise of aeroplanes overhead, and cars on the road, almost disappeared. But the noise of the internet, the main communication outside the home, became louder and louder. I have tried to capture that sense of loud, competing, noise outside of my own experience. In this work it is my intention to amplify the voices of oppressed people, never to trivialise them. I sincerely hope this work is read in that way.<\/p>\n
The creation of this piece has been an exercise in embodied writing. I selected words because they generated a visceral response. I have sought to communicate this viscerality in the use of rhythms and repetition. Because music is meaning made from noise, I have taken a musical motif\u2014the symphony\u2014and redesigned it for the spoken word. It is designed to be read aloud by numerous voices\u2014sometimes in unison, sometimes overlapping or echoing each other, at other times challenging each other. There are several ways you can read this work: down one column and then the other; across the page; or moving between columns by stanza or movement. Each of these ways will give a different sense to the work. I encourage you to read it aloud and to experiment with the process of reading that speaks best to you. My own preference is to read across the page.<\/p>\n
First Movement
\nSonata: Exposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\nI am making sense<\/em><\/p>\n
Made sense sense made<\/em><\/p>\n
Sense in the Making<\/em><\/p>\n
I am trying<\/em><\/p>\n
To make Sense.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To Sense:<\/em><\/p>\n
To feel, touch, hold, smell<\/em><\/p>\n
to breathe in the rancid<\/em><\/p>\n
and the scented<\/em><\/p>\n
to taste in the air<\/em><\/p>\n
and on the tongue<\/em><\/p>\n
to know the passage of Time<\/em><\/p>\n
to hear the cries of abandonment<\/em><\/p>\n
to listen for Hope<\/em><\/p>\n
to be deaf.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To see<\/em><\/p>\n
to envisage, imagine, dream,<\/em><\/p>\n
to make art<\/em><\/p>\n
to find<\/em><\/p>\n
the current that tumbles tidelike<\/em><\/p>\n
into and out of the Mind.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To use senses to make Sense.<\/em><\/p>\n
My sense<\/em><\/p>\n
Our sense<\/em><\/p>\n
Common sense<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We must remember to protect ourselves<\/p>\n
from people<\/p>\n
who choose to not engage<\/p>\n
in the critical act of<\/p>\n
thinking.5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
Thinking<\/p>\n
Thinking<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t like how my chances of<\/p>\n
survival<\/p>\n
are linked to<\/p>\n
the common sense of<\/p>\n
others6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\nAnd yet\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\nThe fire the smoke<\/em><\/p>\n
the blast of taser<\/em><\/p>\n
the car horns<\/em><\/p>\n
the missiles, rocks<\/em><\/p>\n
the calling of names<\/em><\/p>\n
the hiding in bunkers<\/em><\/p>\n
the blaming and cursing<\/em><\/p>\n
the crying out<\/em><\/p>\n
the penting up<\/em><\/p>\n
the years of sin that lie on the land<\/em><\/p>\n
the blood seeping into soil<\/em><\/p>\n
and bitumen<\/em><\/p>\n
lying in red coagulating puddles<\/em><\/p>\n
under our feet<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Breaking things, breaking down<\/em><\/p>\n
Cracking crashing crushing<\/em><\/p>\n
But<\/em><\/p>\n
Is this breaking or building?<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Breaking capitalism?<\/em><\/p>\n
Building fairness?<\/em><\/p>\n
Breaking wealth?<\/em><\/p>\n
Building Justice?<\/em><\/p>\n
Breaking privilege?<\/em><\/p>\n
Building solidarity?<\/em><\/p>\n
Who controls the paradigm of<\/em><\/p>\n
understanding?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThis is how people are actually feeling.<\/p>\n
This is temporary shit.<\/p>\n
This is our future<\/span> we stand up for<\/p>\n
We will cause a scene<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
Donald Trump spent<\/p>\n
only a \u201ctiny\u201d amount of time<\/p>\n
only a tiny<\/span> amount<\/p>\n
tiny, tiny amount<\/p>\n
in\u00a0a reinforced bunker –<\/p>\n
while protesters rage<\/span><\/p>\n
Donald inspects<\/p>\n
(but not for his safety)<\/p>\n
just<\/p>\n
to inspect8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
We tried peaceful protesting<\/p>\n
and this was our last resort<\/p>\n
actions speak louder than words<\/p>\n
actions speak louder<\/p>\n
It sucks to see our city<\/p>\n
burning burning burning<\/span><\/p>\n
but they\u2019re finally listening to us.<\/p>\n
We will be heard.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fuck those media outlets<\/p>\n
They\u2019re going to<\/p>\n
portray us in a bad light<\/p>\n
Only showing what\u2019s going<\/p>\n
on over here<\/p>\n
at the end of the day9<\/sup><\/a>A bad light<\/p>\n
Bad<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\nShit got out of control.<\/p>\n
Shit<\/p>\n
Got<\/p>\n
Out of control10<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\nthe failure to listen<\/em><\/p>\n
the failure to hear<\/em><\/p>\n
the failure to see<\/em><\/p>\n
the failure to touch lives<\/em><\/p>\n
the failure to taste the bitterness<\/em><\/p>\n
the failure to smell dissent<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
the failure.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The nonSense<\/em><\/p>\n
the SenseLess<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nFuck all that talking11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
I need you to see me<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t see colour?<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t see me<\/span>.12<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some people can\u2019t walk round without<\/p>\n
being scared<\/p>\n
that some cop<\/p>\n
is going to come to them<\/p>\n
with a<\/p>\n