Cats and Treasures: Translanguaging in Poetry from K/now/here.

In this paper, I discuss translanguaging in poetry—the approach underpinning my poems “Siamese Cats” and “National Treasures Coming Home”. Translanguaging is a developing term used by educationalists and social linguists to describe the practice where one uses all facets of their linguistic abilities to “maximise communication potential”. Rejecting the idea of a pure language, translanguaging does not privilege institutionally sanctioned languages over other linguistic abilities.

‘Knowhere’ is a fictitious mining colony from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, made from the severed head of a celestial being and floats in an inter-dimensional junction. I argue that through translanguaging, so-called ‘hybridised’ Australian writers can create their own "K/now/here", a free-floating space where even those who are not literate in their heritage language/mother tongues, can explore, interrogate, and problematise their position within the Australian cultural landscape. And in doing so, concretise previously fragmented and ethereal liminal identities.