ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects a conversation between two Aboriginal women poets and scholars from unique local and cultural standpoints, as we enter the colonial archive via those cast iron gates swung open on rusty hinges. We seek beginnings to stories from different places and points in history; un-ending stories that are embodied and lived, and also ‘officially’ traced via the state's archive. This is a ‘call and response’ conversation on what happens when the archive box is opened; when records speak and are heard for the first time. We consider what happens when stolen memories and stories of our loved ones collide, and our ‘uncanny knowing’ of each other despite our cultural, spatial and temporal differences. Importantly, we consider the potential and possibility of poetry as an affective-tool and literary-intervention; our way to actively transform out from the archive-box, and rupture the ongoing violence of the colonial archive. This is a sovereign-woman conversation, devoid of any colonial filter that might read us in ways we do not intend; a contemplation on history, poetry and our relationship with the state’s gendered and racialized colonial archive. The gates will be open when we leave, swinging on rusty hinges, and we invite you to follow.
