Bron Bateman presents: Nadia Rhook on poetry, history, motherhood and privilege. A Fremantle Press podcast

Nadia Rhook (Artist)

Research output: Non-traditional research outputDigital or Visual Products

Abstract

In Nadia Rhook’s latest collection Second Fleet Baby she writes of the differences and similarities between motherhood in contemporary and convict times. Nadia says of herself and her ancestor Susannah Mortimer, ‘As white women we have in common that part of our desirability, or function in the colony, is to reproduce the settler population. And in her time that was very explicit … but I still felt that sense when I became pregnant.’ Nadia said she had to ask herself, ‘What am I doing? I’m also increasing the settler population on Indigenous land. What does that mean to be involved in that reproduction?’
After going through IVF, Nadia felt it was important to write about it. She said, ‘I was looking for representations that would give me perspective on it, that would give me strength or a way to make sense of my own experience. And, at the time I couldn’t find any … so I just began writing my own poems about IVF and pushing through what felt like a dark and lonely time … I needed a narrative.’ She hopes that people who need to be held a little bit more through the IVF experience may find some sense of connection in the poems.
This wonderful conversation also looks at how poetry and storytelling can be a truer articulation of history, and the awkwardness of narrating the past and present from a place of privilege.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationFremantle
PublisherFremantle Press
Media of outputOnline
Publication statusPublished - 2022

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