Kerri Shying is a poet of Wiradjuri and Chinese family, publishing across many journals and anthologies.
She is the author of a bilingual pocketbook of poems “sing out when you want me”,2017, Flying Island Press, “Elevensies”, 2018 Puncher and Wattman and “Knitting Mangrove Roots”2019, Flying Island Press.
Kerri held the Varuna Dr Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship for 2019 for her current collection ‘Know Your Country” 2020, Puncher and Wattman, and was shortlisted in 2017 for both the Helen Ann Bell Prize and the Noel Rowe Award.
Kerri has been convenor of Write Up for 5 years, a free arts/writing group for people living with disability.
She lives with disability in Newcastle, NSW with her famous dog Max Spangly.
Kerri is a nominee in https://theaspireawards.com.au 2020, an activity of the Human Rights Commission, for disability activism in the arts.
Here’s some Elevensies from “Knitting Mangrove Roots”
saw his hands stimming over lies
and thought it’s good you’ll be gone
soon those buckled bulbs for
fingernails the giveaway of a heart
about to blow the eloquence of illness
far surpassed the itchy dogs that fell limping from his mouth
nothing he said worth a dollar on the
open market no exchange rate for
who’d pay some stories ought
to die those names for things rubbed out
in the sand the beginning it was the word
why can't you whisper it to me
has it got to be this shout from
one day to the next every sinew
pulled up hard each movement
effort to caress what ails the
buttress on a falling wall with sticks
is how i see my mind these days
one more pill in the phalanx that wheels
across the week this skirmish or another
there is no battle just a little less
nothing can be won
someone mentioned relativism
in a tv show and i thought that’s
about as café as the conversations
get if you aren’t working maybe
if you are pissed you get a chat to live
in the revolving door of commerce
the life social that’s the glitter the
edible gold in your champagne stand
here and watch the yearly immigration
like koels the cab doors slamming at
2am we raise them then they go
cream blossoms take a drench
beside the house the lotus pond
refills a season grows we have
no thought to name the fifth
among the too cold too warm
here where people of the just-enough-land
pride themselves on common
ground this anomaly unsettles
like the lady doctor speaking
in the house today answer best
to turn your back and go the other way
three o’ clock all i’ve had is one cup
of coffee soy milk i try to imagine
eating the fridge is full so full the door
fights back listen to my tongue stinging
a rebuke go on eat your tea
beside my heart i hear the acidness of hollow
space pause if i have grown to like the gnaw
my juice on flesh my spine a pinion to the bed
go now hear the lettuce see the ham all wrapped
in calico boil rice at least it’s the anxiety of pain
i tell myself you don’t have to make a meal of it
drought is in our faces now the sea
the blue distraction no help from
the dusted wind i hear the back door
slamming like a drummer why
not rub it in where did we think
the topsoil of the country would stay
not a drink to wet it down roots
so far forgotten they are frailer than a
thought death lasts longer the whole place
is on the move still we can’t modify
a thing until our nostrils cake
Some covid-19 poems; us lot had to isolate more and for longer but had more experience of isolation. Maybe we did better?
Mr Whitmont
jam your hands
in your pockets
of your suit
at the lights
I wanna see
your arse-peach
tight against
woollen superfine
business men
come back
with the right slits
shroud hips
zoom has let me down
I'm ready for the show
wakings
whether 8am or midnight lately
have been calling for attention where
none is due no bus to catch and still the
call to regimen a stump jump plough persistent
hooks the tender lobe skin skull bindings
lacking that flying buttress others
strain against demands that ping in on
the minute insistent spruikers
human potential what a movement
what a trip to nowhere sells you a police
hat and cuffs says here arrest yourself
emperor of nothin in the land of nowhere
quaking in our boots by the billboards
gather too much too late wickedness
and words that change directions like the
swallows of that facebook viral video
we all sought to marvel lost to hard work
holding out for images seated in the
deckchairs with one hand full of helium
balloons fantasy of forward
upward sky-high imaginings of riches
what's deserved is never what we get
yesterday I swapped a metal headband and
a floral garland for three large lemons at a
table up the street they were out of
lemonade I fresh out of coin the true
transaction that we met