Chloe Robinson reviews Refugia by Elfie Shiosaki
Refugia
By Elfie Shiosaki
ISBN 9781922777133
Reviewed by CHLOE ROBINSON
Having previously reviewed Shiosaki’s writing, I picked up Refugia with high expectations, anticipating powerful language and incredible storytelling. But this went well beyond my expectations, achieving its 5-star status, not even halfway through the opening section. I read through the collection twice without leaving my chair, turning the pages by lamplight many hours after I should’ve been in bed, rendered shellshocked and starstruck, completely entranced and unable to set the book down.
Refugia is the latest poetry collection by Noongar and Yawuru writer, Elfie Shiosaki, whose debut collection Homecoming (2021) was shortlisted for the Stella Prize among numerous other awards. Drawing inspiration from the first year of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s search to understand how the first stars and galaxies were formed, Refugia, takes us on a journey to understand the formation of the Swan River Colony in 1829. Each poem in the collection is presented as a star, in a sky littered with history, begging to be explored. As we journey through the collection, Shiosaki paints a breathtakingly raw portrait of our country’s history, full of nostalgic evocations of earth and space, and unfiltered retellings of the violence inflicted by colonial settlement. Pulling from both the National Library of Australia archives and the UK Parliamentary Archives, Shiosaki seeks to understand the origins of western settlement, exploring the violent formation of what is now known as Western Australia, through the colonizer’s language, as well as her own. The collection paints a breathtakingly raw portrait of our country’s history, the power of the earth and the stars, the years of unjust violence, and the ongoing journey to recovery. The collection revives the heartbeat of the land buried under the bloodied footsteps of Western invasion.
in cosmic cliffs
womb of dust and gas
a story is born
(p.3)
The opening poem, ‘a galaxy of stories’, immediately transports you into the constellations of history kept alive through storytelling. You are greeted by the ‘womb’ of the earth, the birthplace of a universe of stories, and begin your journey through the stars, and toward an understanding of our history.
…hundreds of billions of stars
warping space
stretching light from the early universe
hurtling towards my eyes
(p.3)
Entering the collection feels like stepping into a world beyond time and space, into a sparkling sea of stars and stories. Yet, in turning the page, we are faced with an act of omnipotent and inescapable destruction, the meteor that is John Stirling. We are first introduced to western invasion, through ‘Chicxulub Impact/1829’, the second poem in the collection. Here, the year of Stirling’s invasion (1829), is coupled with an image of extermination: ‘Chicxulub’ the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, and, in a striking echo of the events of 1829, the beauty we have been introduced to in the opening poem, is crushed, buried ‘under the burning debris’ of colonial settlement (p.4). The two events, introduced through the poem’s title, only separated by a forward slash, act as mirrors of the other, Stirling is an architect of extermination, his footsteps on Noongar Nation, an asteroid crushing all life on earth. Our journey toward understanding the formation of Swan River, is immediately characterised as one of mass erasure, the sky of stories we travel through, now blackened with the horrors of colonization.
In this collection, Shiosaki refuses to shy away from the atrocities bloodening the land. Horrific events have occurred and Shiosaki will not let us look away. Placing texts extracted from national archives throughout her collection to depict the unjust cruelty and senseless violence perpetuated by historical figures we are taught to celebrate.
Whereas divers of His Majesty’s subjects have by the license and consent of His
Majesty effected a settlement upon certain
wild and unoccupied lands
(p.19)
These lines, pulled from the Western Australian Act 1829 in the UK Parliamentary archives, sit among the people the act seeks to erase; ‘naming and claiming lands known as intimately to the Whadjuk as the smiling lines around our own grandmothers’ eyes’ (p.20). Shiosaki makes us look beyond the statues donated by ‘CHANNEL NINE AND RADIO 6KY’ (p.11) and the lies written in our history books ‘decisive encounter massacre’ (p.29) toward the truth, recorded in official statements, which shows that Stirling knowingly and savagely massacred a community. In this collection, Shiosaki skilfully manipulates language, reworking texts previously used to validate the violence perpetuated by colonial hands, to dismantle the ingrained cultural perceptions of their fraudulent innocence.
Despite the pain seeping throughout the collection, there remains an unrelenting sense of hope, ‘I refuse / to walk on Country / wounded / limping’ (p.68). Shiosaki refuses to let us ignore what was taken, yet, we do not lose sight of what remains, the stars – and the stories within them – are alive, passed down through the earth and through those who walk upon it. The title poem ‘Refugia’, the only poem in the collection set in the future, is a manifestation of this hope, a reckoning of country, the land enacting its revenge on those who have unjustly intruded upon it. Refugia tells the story of eucalyptus avia, a tree system emerging from the earth to disrupt the foundations of the city above it, displacing the people who have settled upon it and reclaiming the land stolen years ago. White picket fences are turned into rubble and life returns to the land. The earth becomes a character of resistance and regeneration, where hope is not just a possibility, but something alive.
Their root systems cracked open footpaths, roads and foundations of every house and building, bending and breaking them to
the will of a new master.
(p.78)
Refugia is a powerful and emotional exploration of our country’s history, the future that should have been, and the horrific reality of what was. Shiosaki takes us on a journey through the history of our country, simultaneously confronting us, with the truth of western settlement, and its ongoing and inescapable consequences. The violent history that has been paraphrased and minimised in our history books, is placed, raw and untouched, directly across from heartbreaking explorations of the pain and suffering modern Australia was founded upon. Never before in a poetry collection–or in any text for that matter–have I encountered such a wholistic exploration of our land’s history. The collection delves into heartache, grief, love, hope, family, violence, genocide, and everything in between. I finished Refugia in awe, wiped away my tears, and haven’t stopped recommending it to anyone who will listen. A masterpiece of language, and a powerful exploration of our country’s history, Refugia is a work of art that belongs permanently in the Australian curriculum and on all Australian bookshelves.
CHLOE ROBINSON (she/her) is a writer and avid reader born and raised in Bunurong and Wadawurrung Country. She is currently undertaking her Masters in Writing and Publishing at RMIT University after completing her Bachelors in English Literature at the University of Melbourne.