burning rice is part of the 2012 New Voices series and the debut collection from Eileen Chong. The publication is a sleek, pocket-size 40 pages. Here lies great poetry, tight phrasing and an innate way of telling stories. The title evokes a nostalgic sense of home and food; the notion of absence circulates the poems, reminiscent of scents and fragrances. What strikes me first is Chong’s ability to immerse the reader in two landscapes: the old and the present and this imagery is unswerving, charming and utterly absorbing. Think the sacredness of bathhouses, mooncakes and photo albums braided with beautiful descriptions of quiet and reflected moments. In any other context, these glimpses could have been mundane but here they’re given breath.

The poetry feels like walking through a family home, all those details, ornaments with stories behind them. There’s a familiarity in reading these poems, despite the cultural difference. In ‘Before Dawn’, Chong textually dedicates the poem to her grandfather with wonderful use of language, shifting to present from passing: ‘Father of my father, I was not quite seven / when you died. We drove in darkness / before dawn broke’. In ‘My Hakka Grandmother’ there’s the lines ‘run / through the fields, feet unbound /’ and ‘rice husks, like your dark hair’ evocative of childhood and that memory of food and love combined. This poem describes well the borders of otherness, specifically in ‘I wonder where our bloodline begins. / We are guest people /’. In ‘Kelong’ Chong reminiscences 1980 via the use of photography, the imagery is haunting in ‘He holds the ghost / of a fishing line but has caught nothing’ and ‘my grandmother steams / the orange fish in a wok, when you grandfather picks out / its eyes with his chopsticks’. Like Chong, I can also taste ‘the sweet flesh’ and the poem conjures up a cinematic photograph that I hold in my mind.

In ‘Elementary Chinese’ Chong cleverly interprets Chinese characters literally by paring the radicals of the words armour and bird to equal duck: ‘a bird wearing armour is a duck’. On surface level the poem reads like a definitive list of obscure images or a riddle, the way you interpret the poem is essentially a linguistic puzzle. These lines are definitely playful! The line, ‘The sea: a mother wearing a hat / by the waves’ conjures up the frill on the sunhat and the sound of the ocean, accompanied by a sense of unease or uncertainty.

Halfway through the poems become smaller in size, but this spontaneous brevity gives enough space to let the other images stir and settle. ‘Clockwork’ is striking in its imagery:

and count. Weigh the shadow of the egg yolk.
The sonographer measures your minute spine

and hands us a print of a ghost-speck
labelled ‘baby’ as I peel on my clothes.

What I love so much about these lines is the precision and care, echoing that of the sonographer’s but also the way Chong manipulates expression. ‘ghost-speck’ is haunting and the reveal of ‘baby’ brings us into realisation of new life.

I am particularly taken by ‘Lu Xun, your hands’ in which Chong describes Lu Xun, Mao’s favoured poet of the 20th century. Lu Xun is really a seminal writer in Chinese Literature, whose work calls up sensations of being homesick and this is echoed strongly in Chong’s collection. This poem takes a romantic and admired tone, especially within ‘your hands / are clasped behind your back, / across the black silk / of your scholars dress’ and ‘Your thoughts / unfold before me, beginning / at the moss-green rocks. They linger’. The line breaks are most beautiful and suggest pausing to reflect and meditate on and within Lu Xun’s influence.

Eileen Chong figures out her heritage via food and ritual. This is a wonderful, rendered first collection which is warm, playful and reminiscent of the things we love and the landscapes in which we do so. You can purchase burning rice here.

FICTION
Oliver Mol
Cunt Angel
Page 14

VW: Did anything in particular inspire this piece?

OM: When I was young, maybe nine, I had my first kiss with this girl named Melanie to Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’. Not a proper kiss, just on the lips. Then she moved away and I moved away and all this time passed and one day I said what is her name maybe I can find her on Facebook and then I did find her on Facebook and she had moved to Armidale and was pregnant and was part of this group “I like blokes who drive utes” and “yewww utes” or something. Then I thought about contacting her. I guess this was my inner monologue or my way of dealing with it. The story, of course, is a tragedy.

VW: Did the voice and the humour in the story originate naturally, or were you quite deliberate about what kind of funny you wanted to be?

OM: When the story began it was not going to be funny. I was just recalling past events and wondering what would happen and at some point it became this big parody of whatever culture you want to call it: bogan/gym junkie/corporate/consumerist… I’m not really sure. I suppose the story is, at least stylistically, indebted to Dave Eggers, and further to the writers at McSweeney’s. They are all very good at writing. Except I am not really answering your question, I guess the voice and humour came naturally after a lot of reading and editing.

VW: You sent us this piece to consider for the previous issue, and we asked for some changes and a resubmit. What was that redrafting process like for you?

OM: I did not really change that much except that I removed some sentences and words that were not really needed which made the first half tighter. Then I wrote the whole second half. I guess when I first submitted it was not really a story. I probably would have left it and not looked at it again if Voiceworks had not brought this small detail that is actually integral to a story to my attention. The redrafting process was fun. I kept on thinking what the tattoo of a cunt angel would actually look like. Since, I think I’ve seen it on the arm of this guy who looked like a sailor.

VW: What’s your writing practice like?

OM: Last year I wrote probably 800 words a day for most of the year which is hard if you are at university and are working so I quit my job and lived off Centrelink and unintentionally became a vegetarian but not the smart kind and developed an iron deficiency. Then I thought oh shit I have headaches behind my eyes and I cannot read because my head hurts so I got a job again and my writing dropped to, maybe, 400 words per day. I do not really have a set time but I do like writing in the mornings.

VW: Any writing advice you wished you’d gotten a few years ago?

OM: Read. Read anything you can get your hands on. Pick authors who you like and read everything by them. Find the authors they were inspired by and read everything by them. Ray Bradbury said write one short story a week for a year. At the end you will have fifty-two short stories and there’s bound to be something good in there. I think that’s pretty good advice.

NONFICTION
Jennifer Peterson-Ward
Kill People, Burn Shit, Fuck School
Page 12

VW: The tone and style of music reviews, which you’ve written plenty of, are quite different to that of a piece for a literary journal. Did that present a challenge?

JPW: Totally. There is very little that is similar about them. For music reviews, the writing part is almost an afterthought. With music reviews, it is basically the job of synthesising a gigantic amount of information and opinion into something crystalline and relatively short. It usually only takes me a couple of hours to write a music review.
When writing for literary journals I am doing something entirely different – I am letting it rip in an almost unconscious state to see what I come up with, and then I decide what to do with it.
When writing a literary piece, I am dealing with the world. There is a kind of great feeling that happens with longer, essay-style pieces, this sense of clarity about a subject and an excitement about sharing that in all of its nuances. Then, of course, comes the challenge of processing all that information and turning it into something interesting. Once I reach that point, the writing is equally as easy.

VW: Similarly, the editing process for a journal article is a lot more collaborative. What was that like for you?

JPW: I have a great deal of respect for editors who have a hand in shaping their writers’ work. For this particular piece, the editor I worked with helped me eliminate some passive sentence structures that made the piece much better in the end, as well as providing me with ideas on words or sentences she thought would work better.
Best of all, my editor made a point not to drastically edit work or change my original voice and tone. She edited my work for errors, but not for lifeblood. At the end of the day, every writer’s work is its own colour. I adore an electric crimson, but I also respect a tuscan red, the colour of a raspberry and the hue of dried blood. My vision may be the colour of a burning flame, but if my editor’s isn’t, what right do they have to paint it in their own way?

VW: What’s your writing practice like?

JPW: I have an almost paralysing fear of the blank page or screen, so my practice involves writing very badly. My first drafts are filled with lurching, clichéd writing, outright flailing around. Writing that doesn’t have a good voice or any voice. But then there will be good moments. If I have something – anything – written down then it’s a little less daunting the next time I come back to it.

VW: Any writing advice you wish you’d gotten a few years ago?

JPW: I think something I didn’t realise until I began writing for publications outside university is how important the revisiting and rewriting stages of the process are. It’s a mistake to be too precious about one’s words. I feel the same way about criticism. It’s pretty tough to stick it out, and no matter how brilliant a writer you are or how inspired you feel you’re never going to write the perfect piece first time around. So, get used to it! People are not always going to like it. Okay! You’ll live. They said ‘no’. You know what? Everyone gets said ‘no’ to a million times. You’ll live! If that is something that you really can’t tolerate, then writing with the aim of publication in a magazine or journal probably isn’t for you.

POETRY
Amy May Nunn
Mother Tongue (Calling Long Distance)
Page 11

VW: Is there anything in particular that inspired you to write this poem?

AMN: I come from a family with incredibly itchy feet, we’re spread out across the globe and nobody stays in one place for too long. As a family constantly having to express things long distance, we’ve become very adept at conveying huge amounts of information (and love) in these verbal flash fires. There’s something wonderful about that, but also peculiarly aggressive, and it’s always fascinated me. The use of parentheses in the poem was to do with those quick bursts of intimacy, and distance becoming something visceral, a kind of heightening force. Obviously it’s quite specifically about a maternal distance, and that separation forcing us to know each other in new ways.

VW: You’ve written a few prose poems for us in the past, what draws you to that style?

AMN: I think it’s a combination of two factors. Firstly I’m very, very dyslexic, so I’ve always written in big messy chunks, often with very little structure and rife with grammatical errors. I’d be lying if I said prose poetry was initially a conscious choice, but then of course I realised it was a style and became increasingly intrigued by it. I also come from a theatre background, and grew up sitting through an alarming amount of plays, so a focus on narrative was learnt behaviour to a point. The first pieces I wrote were more like monologues than anything else.

VW: What’s your writing practice like?

AMN: I have a fairly cluttered mind so I actively seek routine with my writing as a method of balancing if nothing else. I find it grounding to have a certain amount of definition surrounding that time, I carry a notebook around with me, but write mainly at my desk these days. The methodical becomes quite freeing, without cutting off from spontaneity, obviously.

VW: How do you edit your work after the first draft?

AMN: I usually write poems in one sitting which creates a kind of adrenaline, so I’ll almost always put the first draft away for a day and come back to it. Then it’s usually a matter of reading it out loud countless times and trying to catch my own thread, kind of like slapping an arm to find the vein (in an entirely non-heroin way). I’m not known for impeccable grammar so I’ll offer it up to a human spellcheck, but only one detached enough to say things like ‘you spelt the same word four different ways here, what’s wrong with you?’ I’m not sure that a poem ever feels entirely finished, but eventually it feels okay to leave it alone.

VW: Any writing advice you wish you’d gotten a few years ago?

AMN: Actually I was at a wedding about a year ago, and a British playwright whose work I really admire happened to be there. Later in the evening, after we’d all drunk far too much, I approached him and not so subtly angled for some writing advice. There was a significant pause and then he opened up into a sequence of little belches, and stumbled past me to the dance floor. I told myself (out of sheer desperation) this was in fact a profound encounter, and his way of telling me to be in the moment. He was really saying don’t become too hunched over your own creativity, it’s awfully limited. Writing, like any art form, requires an element of the obsessive, but it should absolutely push you into the world and not withdraw you from it. Or maybe he was just drunk.

M: Good evening everyone.  I’d like to first introduce you to Bethan, or as she is known in the seedier sides of Melbourne, B-Drizzle.

B-Drizzle has a range of different interests. She has a love for music, politics and most importantly, writing. Her goal after high school would be to get an Arts Degree at the University of Melbourne, but she dreams of studying and living abroad.

B: Hi everyone. This is Michael; he began writing for The Under Age in 2011 and loved it so much that he felt compelled to return for another year. He rides a long-board, buys most of his stylish clothes from Savers and likes to go by the name Fabio.

M: We would like to welcome everyone in attendance. Guests, parents, even the lonely people who wandered off the streets and wanted something better to do than watch Friends re-runs in their parents basements. But most importantly, we’d like to welcome the  wonderful new additions to the Under Age family.

I, along with six of my peers, are here tonight as seasoned Under Agers. With an extra year under our belt, we have experienced the highs and lows of being an aspiring journalist. The lows including having the entire Express Media network hacked and taken down, leaving many of us completely devastated, while the high points include seeing our work published for the very first time, instilling within us a sense of accomplishment, as well as maturity and professionalism.

Nonetheless, six of us return this year with a clearer image of where we stand, and which paths we’d like to follow through the deep, dark and mysterious forest that is writing.

Our new writers however, are here at the start of their long journeys. In the course of a year, they will test the limits of their abilities. They will learn new styles of writing, and be challenged to cover topics that they would never have touched with a ten-foot pole. They will even be required to write under deadlines, which, as they loom closer and closer, will appear more insane than a teenage girl at a One Direction concert.

But these young men and women have been selected for a reason; for their writing abilities and their unique outlook on life. I have no doubt in my mind that Patrick, Nina, Rhea, Hannah, Catherine and B-Drizzle here will shine like stars and make the most of their time at the Under Age.

B: Media. The crux of corruption, yet the driving force that keeps society on their toes; constantly communicating, reporting, discussing and informing. The media can be used to encourage, frighten, manipulate and challenge; it is a conduit of subjectivity and fact.

So much power lies in the media and its role in society is continually developing and changing.

We are relentlessly presented with mindless, facile, often unscrupulous information. Whether we are staring at the television utterly engrossed in a lengthy discussion about the size of a supermodel’s backside, or frantically checking Facebook to see how many little red bubbles have appeared on our screen, we are seeking affirmation. The media can numb the minds of the public forcing them to see only what is deemed ‘important’, but it also has the ability to educate, enlighten and inspire. I am eager to explore the influences that the media has on the world and be actively involved in the communication that occurs to inform others.

I am driven by social justice, human rights and the imbalance and inequality of the world we live in. Poverty, war, famine, child abuse, inhumane imprisonment, torture, racism, violence, discrimination. I want to expose injustice and do everything I can to correct it. I am a curious person; I love reading, writing and learning. For these reasons I applied to join The Under Age. I believe that change can, and does, begin in media.

My love for words began with Harry, Ron and Hermione. I am one of the many fans who have read the all-consuming series innumerable times, stayed up all night unable to put the novel down. I refused to leave the house, and barely spoke to my family until I had read the very last pages of Rowling’s final instalment. Rather than ‘words with friends’, I feel like I am friends with words. Reading, writing, talking – words are infinite; there are no limits. Like a blank canvas, a fresh page waiting to be exposed.

Since meeting the other journalists writing for the Under Age three weeks ago, I have been reading article after article, brainstorming ideas for what could possibly form a story of my own. This is such a dynamic, diverse and exciting group to be part of and I look forward to spending the year with The Under Age team.

If I was asked where I would be in two years, let alone five, I would have no answer. Journalism does seem like a fantastic career path but I can’t say that it is my key aim. I love to read and write, play music, travel and talk. The Under Age is an incredible opportunity and I hope to contribute to it the best that I can.

Of course, not only are we welcoming a new batch of young writers, but we are also extremely glad to have on board the wonderful Rebecca Harkins-Cross.

M: Our new project co-ordinator/mother hen, who is stepping in to fill the hole that Bhakthi Puvanenthiran left, not only in the team, but also in our hearts.

Thank you Bhakthi, for the tremendous amount of work you achieved last year, and a big welcome to Rebecca. B-Drizzle and I, as well as the rest of the Under Age team, look forward to a transcendent year.

B: We greatly appreciate everyone who is here in attendance, and we hope that you all have a fantastic night. Thank you.

I am solely responsible for turning the Express Media Tumblr into the home of a kitten-obsessed, lonely 18 year old girl’s Tumblr. You’re welcome.

It’s nice to meet you.

Giving was nothing new to the heiress and her philanthropy often staggered away from the literary community. She gifted to healthcare and education, youth programs and historic conservation. Ruth Lilly has personally and through her estate given hundreds of millions of dollars to different causes and programs; eight million here, ten million there. But it is her nearly incomprehensible gift of what would amount to close to 200 million dollars, after all was said and done, that continues to amaze. Even more incredible is the story of Lilly’s relationship with Poetry Magazine. By the time of her death, the heiress had already been one of the magazine’s most valued financiers. In 1986, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize was established and operated through the journal, with monetary contributions from Lilly. With a prize of 100 thousand dollars, it remains one of the most lucrative and respected accolades in poetry. Recipients of this honor include Adrienne Rich, Philip Levine and Lisel Mueller.

So, despite its breadth, her final contribution might not beg much disbelief given the heiress’ history, but it is certainly wrought with intrigue when considering another dynamic of this story: Ruth Lilly had reportedly submitted to and been rejected from the magazine a heroic number of times. Many have wondered why a person would be compelled to fund a market from which they were habitually declined. Perhaps it was in these rejections that her respect for the magazine solidified. Much can be said for the integrity of a journal which rejects one of its wealthiest benefactors.  This was the Ruth Lilly we know about. The holes in the story of her life, though, are vast. Some say she suffered from major depression, building the image of a rich recluse, pacing her mansion, consuming volume after volume of creative work to stem her loneliness. She was divorced and childless when she died from heart failure at the age of 94, in December of 2009.

The shadowy and mysterious nature of Lilly also lends itself to perhaps another legacy of the heiress, as the infamous ‘Poe Toaster’. For more than 70 years a figure dressed in black, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf has stalked through the dark on Edgar Poe’s birthday, toasting the writer with a bottle of cognac and placing three roses in a distinct pattern on his grave in Baltimore, Maryland. The tradition of the Poe Toaster is also polluted with speculation. At times notes would be left along with the usual cognac and roses. One of these messages said: “Edgar, I haven’t forgotten you”. Another message left before the 2001 Super Bowl match between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Ravens read: “The New York Giants. Darkness and decay and the big blue hold dominion over all. The Baltimore Ravens. A thousand injuries they will suffer. Edgar Allan Poe evermore.”

In 1993 the words “The torch will be passed” were left at the grave, with an explanation that the toaster had died and would pass the tradition on to a son. Witnesses to the new Toaster have reported a more youthful gait in the enigma, different than the distinctive walk of the original. Several attempts have been made by bystanders to detain and identify the figure, all of which proved unsuccessful. There is no definitive truth to his or her identity. Was it a father and son or, perhaps as some have suggested, not a single person but a confederacy of Poe mourners? Maybe this is where Ruth Lilly falls into the narrative. Was Ruth Lilly the original toaster? Was the story of the toaster’s death and the passing of the tradition a facade, to explain the succession of mourners? Perhaps Lilly had become too frail to make the night walk in the October cold, and gifted another with a tradition just has she has gifted generations of writers with support. Or perhaps Lilly, valuing her privacy, was simply the causal force behind the toaster, a grand and wonderful tribute to a man she respected, for a craft she loved.

Ruth Lilly as the Poe Toaster, either directly or by proxy, would be extremely befitting; one depressed, enigmatic lover of the written word saluting another. Depression and loneliness seem central to the human condition, or at least to the experience of writers. And Ruth Lilly, though unpublished, was definitely a writer. What is certain is that Lilly’s contributions to the literary world will support generations of poets and story tellers. Her name and legacy will continue to provide a stable platform on which emerging and respected writers alike can find an audience for their labors. And, perhaps as a final mysterious addendum to the life of this woman, another thing is certain: The disappearance of the Poe Toaster coincides with the end of Ruth Lilly’s generous life.

This post is from Metre Maids, from April 10th. Jaime Garcia is a paleoconservative conspiracy theorist and poet from California. His poetry has appeared within Voiceworks #87 and #88, dotdotdash, Cell Poems and is forthcoming in Contrary Magazine.

It’s also going to be the last issue edited by Johannes Jakob, so this is his goodbye party too. He’d really, really like you to be there. Also, say hello to the new editor!

The launch will be held Thursday March 29 from 6pm at Bella Union Bar at Trades Hall, 54 Victoria Street  Carlton VIC 3053. You can join the Facebook event here.

Voiceworks #88 ‘Translate’ is like a phrasebook that helps you negotiate our own culture. It’s full of the very best writing by young Australians so that you can convert your literacy into insight and enjoyment.

This issue features Jennifer Peterson-Ward on Tyler the Creator’s plan to scare old white people in middle America. Scott Ford explains what it’s like having a Bitchface. Cherie Lee spends some time with expats in China and after three years of living in Pakistan, Maryam Tayyaba still can’t escape her hybrid self. Naomi Riddle can’t help but find something of herself in Marie Calloway, the author of the controversial ‘Adrien Brody’.

Jack Vening’s piece transits from Bejing International Airport all the way to impersonating a German diabetic in a Berlin telecommunications merger. Daniel Graham’s story deals with the pre-eminent Sydney-based Electric Six tribute band. Oliver Mol’s protagonist would get an offensive tattoo to score the girl with the Holden ute from Armidale. In Raeden Richardson’s story divine graffiti appears in a dustbowl. Amy May Nunn’s poem calls long distance, and however cold the mountain is in Elisabeth Murray’s poem, you will go there.

Will Heyward interviews Chris Andrews, the translator of Roberto Bolaño and Cesar Aira. Dave Drayton translates a Robert Frost poem through six different languages in Google Translate, then back to English. There’s visual art from Mitchell Brannan, Nicole Thomson and David Brun. Plus even more very dope writing from Daniel Hogan, Kim Haworth, Sophia Edwards, Amelia Dale, Eva Bujalka, Alison Gibson, Adolfo Aranjuez, Tayne Ephraim, Jaime Garcia, Bronte Coates and Nick Fogarty.

By Alexandra Fisher (21) – a young Australian writer whose background has fostered a love of different cultures and a desire to understand and report on issues that bring new insight to Australians.

Scovia sits on her top bunk. Her legs stretch across the bed and her hands cup over her knees. She looks vulnerable and I feel uneasy. ‘Just pretend the camera isn’t here and it’s just you and me,’ I tell her.

I was in the Ugandan capital Kampala, volunteering with an American charity organisation that provided mobile medical care to people in some of the region’s poorest areas. We had been called to the Uganda Jesus Village, an orphanage where children were in desperate need of de-worming. After a day of popping orange flavoured pills into the mouths of shy-faced children, I sat down with Scovia to hear her story. I returned a couple of days later – this time equipped with my HD video camera but feeling out of my depth.

Speaking quietly against a background of clunking pans and shuffled footsteps, Scovia recounts her story in remarkable detail. She recites it step by step but becomes disconcerted when she stops to answer questions.

The 12-year-old has lived to tell her tale of one of the most brutal guerrilla armies of recent times. Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) waged Africa’s longest-running civil war, terrorising the Acholi people of northern Uganda for more than twenty years. Kony and several of his top commanders are among the International Criminal Court’s most wanted for their mutilation, abduction and systematic killing of thousands of northern Ugandans. As a self-proclaimed prophet, Kony wanted to overthrow Museveni’s government and lead Uganda according to a warped perception of the Ten Commandments.  The LRA’s tactics were brutal, often involving the removal of lips, ears and limbs from their victims. The rebel group were most reviled, however, for their abduction of children to be used as sex slaves, porters and child soldiers.

Scovia was captured as an 8-year-old. After attending a family burial, she and three of her cousins went to collect firewood. As the sun grew closer to the horizon the four children decided to rest by a tree. Three LRA soldiers ambushed them. The youngest swiped her attacker across the neck with wood and managed to escape. Scovia, with her female cousin Atok, fourteen, and male cousin Ochii, also fourteen, were restrained and dragged into the bush.

‘They started asking, “How old are you?” and I said, “eight”. They put your eyes into the sunlight and if tears are coming then they will say you are young, if you don’t have the tears they will say you are now older and you will become their wife,’ says Scovia.

‘When we reached where Kony [was] they said now you will be carrying his baby.’

Scovia’s age became her safeguard; considered too young for a wife and too slow for a child soldier, she was forced to carry Joseph Kony’s baby across her back for four weeks as they fled government soldiers.

‘Because I was carrying his baby he was good to me, but to others he’d beat them. He would beat you even if you didn’t do anything,’ says Scovia.

Not long after they were abducted, Atok was caught defecating near the tent of a commander. Scovia tells me the fourteen-year-old laughed when she was discovered, but was then violently dragged to the centre of the camp.

‘They put [her] in front of the people then they put an axe like this. Then they cut it off in between.’

Scovia places her hand down the centre of her skull, mimicking how the blade sliced her cousin.

‘Then they removed her clothing and gave it to someone else, leaving the body there.’

Ochii managed to escape the rebels, but was later found and returned to the camp. Scovia watched as he was cut into pieces.

‘I was crying but I didn’t want them to see me, because [if] they see you they will see you are related to that person.’

The LRA’s brutality goes beyond what most can comprehend. Mutilation and killing happens at the whim of a commander and from the moment of capture life becomes a gamble. The LRA are said to capture children because they have an underdeveloped sense of death; while an adult thinks before killing a person, a child could be trained to not bat an eyelid.

As a test for new recruits the rebels send children scampering into a field, carrying nothing but an AK-47 and a fear for their life.

‘They put us to train with others; if you shoot they will not kill you, if you didn’t shoot anyone they will kill you instead of that person,’ says Scovia.

‘If they train you and you know how to shoot, you will go and kidnap other people.’

‘After you shoot you will go and stand on top of that person.’

I take my eyes away from the LCD screen to look at Scovia.

‘Did you shoot anyone?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you stand over them?’

[nods]

‘Did you know them?’

‘No.’

Scovia falls silent.  She bites down on her lip as tears emerge. Her words have fallen somewhere between us. Neither of us knows how to pick them up. Everything is still but the distant clunking of a steel gate and the murmur of school children. Suddenly I find myself on the other side of the interview.

I wondered if it was ethical to probe a child to relive a traumatic experience. And yet I never considered switching off the camera. Scovia’s story reveals the trauma Acholi children had endured and the immense task they face in rebuilding their lives. Once Scovia felt someone was prepared to listen she spoke without pause, entering almost a trancelike state as she recounted her story from beginning to end.

Scovia was freed after two months with the Lord’s Resistance Army. After a long journey on foot, a rebel told her to go home as she could no longer walk and he did not want to carry her.

‘[He told me] if you go back, don’t tell the soldiers that we’re here. If we find you in the garden [bush] we’ll kill you.’

Scovia arrived home to find her father had died from HIV/AIDS, which he’d caught during an extramarital affair. Scovia attended the burial with her mother and sister but left alone after her mother disowned her. Scovia does not know why.

‘She said, “Don’t call me your mum,”’ recalls Scovia.

With both parents gone, Scovia ended up in a camp for displaced civilians. Destitute amid a sea of suffering, she grappled with hunger and sickness and faced abuse in the care of her grandparents. During the war, the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) herded more than two million people into these ‘protective’ camps as part of the government’s counter-insurgency strategy. But the camps, overcrowded, disease-ridden and heavily reliant on aid food, offered little protection from the rebels and were almost universally grim.

After surviving one year in the camp, Scovia’s plight came to an end with the arrival of the Uganda Jesus Village (UJV). The organisation works to rehabilitate war-affected orphans from the north by offering education, shelter and care in Kampala.

Jennifer Mitchell, abducted by the LRA for one year as a child, runs the UJV with her Canadian husband Cameron Mitchell. Jennifer offers both her expertise as a trained psychologist and an understanding of what it was like as a child living through the LRA war.

‘They treat me well,’ says Scovia. ‘They teach us how to respect others.’

After twenty-three years of conflict, the UPDF forced Kony and his rebel group from northern Uganda. Today, having eluded capture, Joseph Kony dwells in the immense spaces of central Africa, continuing to wreak havoc on small villages near Congo and southern Sudan. Peace and normalcy is slowly returning to northern Uganda. Communities are rebuilding their lives and most former camp dwellers have returned to their original homes.

It was a war that baffled many: how one maniac leading an army of abducted children could hold half a country captive for nearly a quarter of a century. In his book The Wizard of The Nile, journalist Matthew Green says the war’s longevity was not so much a tribute to Kony’s skill as a leader, but could rather be attributed to President Yoweri Museveni’s abandonment of the Acholi people in the north. His primary response to the conflict was to force most of the population into squalid displacement camps where disease killed more people than the rebels. Many victims of the war have called on the Ugandan government to investigate the violations by both the LRA and UPDF and bring perpetrators to justice. But the government is worried investigations would unearth its own crimes, committed by the UDFP.

I’ve used Scovia’s story as the centrepiece for a documentary, which is in its final stages of editing. The documentary explores the dilemma faced by children affected by the LRA war. It covers not only those who were abducted by Kony but the scores more forced into displacement camps by the UPDF, where they fell into the care of frail, dying or immensely poor guardians because their own parents had been murdered by the rebels. I began my journey in Kampala, where I spoke with children at the UJV. From Kampala I travelled to northern Uganda and spoke the former guardians of children.  They told me of their continued struggle to find adequate education, shelter and financial stability for their families. They said it was best the children were sent to Kampala because they are offered education.

It’s time to return to school. Scovia slips from her bunk and heads for the door. In her fleecy, maroon t-shirt and black-strapped sandals she is the image of a 12-year-old. But I sense the real child was left behind the day rebels dragged her to the bush.

I ask her if she’ll ever return to the north. She nods.

‘I would like to help people.’

By Kirsti Whalen.

These are the things that I don’t know.

I don’t know how to do calculus.

Or long division.

Or short division.

I don’t know how to cook a steak

(I’m vegetarian).

I don’t know how to re-hang hinges on my broken door

And I don’t know how to live this life

without expecting more.

I don’t know what it means

to be raped and tortured.

I don’t know what it means to put your faith in the police

I don’t know what it means to live in a state where you think you’re safe

because of the police

then have all of that trust betrayed

and know your faith’s been thwarted.

I don’t know what it means

to go to trial believing that the truth will save you

then sit within that witness box and watch the system fail you.

When I went to court

For driving too fast and forgetting to pay

they just patted me on the back and sent me away

I don’t know

What it’s like

To know you’ll never walk away again.

I don’t know what it’s like to lay

On a cold hard table of steel

and feel my life’s last injection

the injection that will take all that I am             away

because some man in some office thinks that’s okay

I don’t know what it’s like to stand in a row, back to the wall

And know I’m about to be shot

I can try to imagine

But I know not.

I don’t know how to stand up here and wax lyrically about oppression

I don’t know what it’s like to be a refugee

Held for years in dank detention.

What I do know

Is how to say

That I don’t know

And that’s okay.

Because if I know I don’t know then one day

I’ll find out and know I know and in this way

When I do speak out

I’ll know it’s true.

So I want to ask the law makers and the policy makers

And the policemen spraying pepper spray

And holding up their guns

And the war fighters and the war makers

And the person with his finger poised upon the button

Which is going to kill someone

Do you?

During 2011, six diverse schools began working together on a very exciting year 10 student writing project. Collaborating online, the teacher-librarians, English teachers and students shared their personal writing and gained a broad understanding of the diversity of culture and experience across Victoria.

WHO AM I?

By Josh Hanegbi

From: Bialik College

I pace up and down an empty hall, doors on both sides. Each door looks the same but I know that only one will take me forward.

My sharp footsteps slowly turn into the crunch of sand under my feet. The waves breaking on the shore fill the air, timeless and endless.

I can see a boat bob up and down smoothly on the horizon. Waves chase it, voices carrying in the air behind it. A man, a woman and small boy sit on its deck, sun warming their faces. Matching gold rings are on the couple’s hands, the boy has his mother’s eyes. It is his 12th birthday and they are sailing out to the open water for a special family lunch, just the three of them. The two of them are the most important things in the man’s life, nothing could replace this moment for him.

I am in a room with floor and ceiling that are identical, infinite twisting black lines on a bright white background.

I can see a man screaming. Nothing else matters to him, he must scream, for if he does not then they will think he is crazy.

A long room surrounds me, a huge raised platform in the middle.

I can see a man walking across it, a thousand camera flashes illuminating his perfect features. His shoulders, arms, legs and stomach; all are the product of dedication to self. Each of his features is more defined and perfect than they have ever been; except for the brilliant blue, hidden behind squinting lashes.

I walk towards a man in a suit, sitting on a small black leather stool.

I can see the calluses on his fingers as he plays, alone with just his music. Fingers flying over a grand piano standing on a dark stained wooden floor, black shiny body polished perfectly, gleaming in the soft light. Superbly structured, excellently executed, the music seems to come naturally to him. Years of hard work, of repeated scales and technical exercises have finally paid off. He is The Pianist, and when he plays nothing else exists. The piano is no longer just wood, ivory and metal; it is an extension of him.

As I step away, the music ceases. I am walking across a marble hall, a butler clad in suit and jacket leads me towards grand mahogany doors.

I can see the watch on his wrist, heavy platinum wristband glinting, hands moving silently. The bulge in a breast pocket hiding a set of keys to the car he has someone drive for him. Everyone always knew he would be the best, they had told him so since he was a kid. He had known it, and now he had become it.

I walk around and see all of these people. And I am completely alone.

I turn and look back down the hall at the doors, and I begin to pace.