Bio


John Kinsella is the author of over seventy books of poetry, fiction, criticism, plays, edited works (such as The Penguin Book of Australian Poetry), and collaborative works. The three volumes of his Australian collected poems are The Ascension of Sheep (UWAP, 2022), Harsh Hakea (UWAP, 2023) and Spirals (UWAP, 2024). Other poetry books include Drowning in Wheat: selected poems (Picador, 2016), The Pastoraclasm (Salt, 2023) and Graphologies (Arc, 2023). Recent critical books are Polysituatedness (Manchester University Press. 2017), Beyond Ambiguity: Tracing Sites of Literary Activism (MUP, 2021), and Legibility: an antifascist poetics (Palgrave, 2022). A frequent collaborator with other poets, writers, artist, musicians, and activists, he lives on Ballardong Noongar land at ‘Jam Tree Gully’ in the Western Australian wheatbelt (north of Toodyay). A recent collaboration with Kwame Dawes is UnHistory (Peepal Tree, 2022) and with Charmaine Papertalk Green is Art (Magabala, 2022). In 2007 he received the Christopher Brennan Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. He is a vegan anarchist pacifist of four decades and a committed environmental and rights activist.



What are the ecological / social crises within your region / country?


The local 'polycrisis' is not new, and is part of ongoing colonial rapacity. Whatever term we evoke to talk of the cascading crises of environment and injustices, the fact is that where I live they are entangled with ongoing colonialism. We live on stolen Noongar Boodja, and until the land is restored to its people it cannot hope to repair. The collapse of the biosphere has come about through greed, exploitation, and abuse of environment, and only a respect for Indigenous knowledge/s will move us all towards rectifying these damages and wrongs. At present, we are in drought crisis, with rain fall lessening each year. The massive clearing of land (less than 3 percent of pre-invasion/pre-settlement vegetation exists) in the 'wheatbelt' of Western Australia has played a large role in this reduction of rainfall, and has been a significant contributor to global warming. The damage of country is exacerbated by monocultures of agriculture, mining and other 'developments'. Near where we live, a massive Nickel-Copper-Platinum Group Element mine that threatens the great Julimar Forest is sold to the public as a 'green metals' panacea, when it is in fact a devastation of environment and biosphere. As mining companies become more adept at giving poly-answers to the polycrisis, they adapt to the changing awareness with arguments to 'sustain' their own operations. Capitalism is at the core of these exploitations, and, to my mind, is inimical to the well-being of the planet. As the biosphere is further degraded, inequality increases (our local small town like so many other places is experiencing a homelessness crisis), bigotry (in its myriad forms) entrenches, and greenwash becomes standardised. The military and militarism is increasing its hold (e.g. through arms manufacturing, AUKUS and the introduction of nuclear submarines into Australia), and sections of 'industry' and 'politics' argue for the deathcult industry of nuclear power (which I have also spent a life resisting). Crops here are grown using vast amounts of chemical fertiliser, highly toxic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Land clearing continues. Rare stands of bush are cleared for road widening. The energy grid is still driven by coal and gas, and fossil-fuel companies hold immense power. All of this is embodied in the colonialist urge. All of this leads to injustice. All of this leads to the collapse of ecologies and the deprivation of animal rights. As a vegan anarchist pacifist I resist in all non-violent ways I can and I will never give in. Poetry matters in this approach. John Kinsella