Earlier this year the Albanese government shifted responsibility for the awards to Creative Australia as part of its National Cultural Policy and away from the direct involvement of government,following criticism of the awards for being too Sydney-centric,poorly organised and for having too many judges associated with News Corp.
Gao’s poems – lyrical,personal,expressive,moving – consider such subjects as queer identity,the death of their mother,dyslexia,Chinese culture,day and night,and love. The poet is completing a master’s in creative writing at the University of Texas in Austin and arrived back in Australia on Thursday morning.
“I started writing when I was very young and I knew I wanted to dedicate my life to writing,” they said. “I had that idea from a very early age,but the kind of educational system in China wasn’t conducive to that kind of creativity.
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“I started memorising ancient Chinese poems from a very early age,hundreds of them,but what really drew me to English was older English poetry;there is a kind of cadence to it that reminds me of the rhythm that I heard as child from ancient Chinese poetry. I think I’ve been trying to replicate that.”
Their poems also touch on being abused with racial slurs during Covid,racism and being bullied because of their sexuality. “I went to an evangelical Christian school so it was very much a fundamentalist environment. I experienced way more brainwashing in Australia than in China,which is kind of ironic.”
Jessica Au began the yearby winning the richest writing prize in the country,the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature forCold Enough for Snow,her acclaimed novella about a woman visiting Japan with her mother,the first time they have travelled together as adults. It is written in pristine prose that can seem in contrast to the ambiguity of some of the stories the mother tells.