Words to Sing the World Alive (ed by Jasmin McGaughey and The Poet’s Voice, UQP)

Words to Sing the World Alive, edited by Torres Strait Islander and African American author/editor Jasmin McGaughey and organisation The Poet’s Voice, collects stories from 40 First Nations contributors as they share words in language that hold significance for them, including Ellen van Neerven, Tara June Winch, Evelyn Araluen, Kim Scott and Jazz Money (from whose piece the title comes). The book’s multitudinous voices and styles only sharpen two insights that stayed with me—the relationality of language with being, place, memory and futurity; and the diversity of languages spoken on this continent over the last 60,000 years, which, since invasion, have often faced linguicide. Because my birthplace is Tweed Heads, I lingered with Mykaela Saunders’s piece, ‘Yugarie’, which interweaves a sketch of local, sustainable food culture with a history of segregation and survival of Bundjalung and other local First Nations people—stories that I did not previously know. Since reading, I’ve been reflecting on McGaughey’s call to non-Indigenous readers to consider these questions from Aunty Rose Elu: ‘What will you do with this knowledge? How will this gift move on from you? Where will it return to?’. I’m resisting the temptation to quote further; I encourage readers to take in the words embedded in context. Readers who enjoy Anita Heiss’s engagement with Wiradjuri language, as well as readers of the recent Bina: First Nations Languages, Old and New, will likely appreciate this exceptional anthology.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Angela Glindemann is a queer writer based in Naarm/Melbourne. She works as an editor for Books+Publishing. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

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