Maar Bidi - next generation black writing

This week's book club celebrates NAIDOC week 2020. The theme for this years NAIDOC is “Always was Always will be”. The theme acknowledges that First Nations people have occupied and cared for this land for more than 65, 000 years. First Nations people across the lands that we now collectively call Australia have the oldest oral traditions and stories in the world so I thought it appropriate to bring in a new collection called Maar Bidi - next generation black writing. Maar Bidi grew out of the creative writing program for young Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander students at the school of Indigenous studies at the University of Western Australia. The collection brings together nine new Indigenous writers aged between eighteen and twenty one and is edited by Elfie Shiosaki and Linda Martin. Published by Magabala books Maar Bidi is a Noongar language phrase. It’s translated in the introduction as ‘to create a pathway with one’s hands’. A possible alternative translation of Maar Bidi is handwriting. It’s an interesting thought there; the connection between writing and creating pathways. In his introduction to Maar Bidi, Noongar author Kim Scott describes how the reader will “assist in recovering and forge connection between an internal heritage and the external world as it is right now. You will help give voice to dreams and desires and wounds, and realise that individuals -and reading - can reveal and renew spirit and energy that connects all.” Now I don’t know where I’m speaking to you; in your car, on your morning run, at home, or even where that place is around Sydney. But I do know that so many of us are limited in our experience and our exposure to the stories of young black men and women. That we are more likely to experience these lives in tragic headlines than through personal stories. So I wanted to introduce you to Maar Bidi so that you might discover the lyrical beauty of Angelica Augustine as she explains to us how the “ocean is playing its own kind of music”, hear Savannah Cox explain in ‘Mother Earth’ that Every Hole You Carve From Her She dies a little And learn to listen with humility as Jarrad Travers’ ‘Stolen’ asks But Why? I still ask They were morally bankrupted. I now live my life Sorrily, disgusted I’ve shared just a few words from the collection here. You don’t more from me, these words recommend themselves and challenge you to get out and discover more. Go and check out Maar Bidi... Then go read Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance, or Anita Heiss’ Tiddas, or Claire G Coleman’s The OLd Lie, or Karen Wyld’s Where the Fruit Falls, or any of the hundreds of incredible novels being written by Aboriginal authors that are not only terrific reads but offer us all a chance to learn and get smart about the 65, 000 year old continent we live in...