A Voice of One’s Own

KYLIE HOLMES HEAD OF ENGLISH

Earlierthis year, First Nations poet Evelyn Araluen won the Stella Prize for her debut collection of prose and poetry, Drop Bear. A descendant of the Bundjalung nation, born and raised on Dharug Country, Araluen’s poetry is a powerful commentary on the colonial history of Australia. Named after the mythical creature which, according to Australian folklore, is a predatory version of the koala, designed to terrify tourists, Drop Bear interrogates other myths of Australian history, literature and culture. According to the judges, Araluen’s text is ‘a breathtaking collection of poetry and short prose which arrests key icons of mainstream Australian culture and turns them inside out.’ 1 This is most clear in the poem titled Mrs Kookaburra Addresses the Natives, where Araluen deconstructs May Gibbs’ Snugglepot and Cuddlepie series and critiques the way Indigenous people are represented in her narrative. The announcement of Araluen’s success coincided with my teaching of Virginia Woolf’s 1929 seminal text A Room of One’s Own to a Year 12 IB Literature class. This prompted me to speculate on the progress that has been made by women since Woolf first delivered her lecture and how this has influenced my approach to the selection and teaching of literature in the English classroom. Composed shortly after World War I, and during a time of awakening female consciousness, Woolf’s polemical essay examines the implications of women’s historical exclusion from education and material wealth due to their position of perceived inferiority. The fundamental idea of her text emphasises that the social constraints placed on women impacted their ability to flourish and excel in the world of literature. Woolf strengthens her argument on the inequalities of the female experience by drawing upon the fictive example of Judith Shakespeare. She asks us to think about Shakespeare’s hypothetical, equally talented sister and explores women’s lack of access to the opportunities available to men.

Reflecting on the strength of female authorship today, I believe the position of women and fiction has evolved in ways that Woolf could only dream about. Araluen is one of many female authors who are making waves in Australian literature at present. Authors such as Alexis Wright, Melissa Lucashenko, Hannah Kent, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Chelsea Watego, Clementine Ford, Charlotte Wood, Diana Reid, Larissa Behrendt, Elfie Shiosaki, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Alice Pung and Bri Lee are asserting themselves as powerful instruments of change. These voices offer up a range of exciting opportunities in the English classroom as we encourage our students to grapple with controversial issues. I think about the gusto with which my classes have devoured the works of Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter and Carol Ann Duffy, all of which subvert traditional malecentred narratives. While there is no doubt that the canon is still weighted towards the dead, white man, it seems that this generation is challenging traditional literary voices more readily and confidently. By empowering our students to be active participants in conversations about texts (both classic and contemporary) and become authors in their own right, we are encouraging them to re-write the narrative. By engaging with the classics from a more critical standpoint (as Araluen has done with May Gibbs’ work and Leah Purcell has recently achieved with her stunning appropriation of Henry Lawson’s short story, The Drover’s Wife) we are encouraging our students to destabilise the dichotomy between the old and the new as they enter into dynamic textual conversations.

There are undoubtedly challenges that remain for female authors in the 21st century and Evelyn Araluen acknowledged one of these when accepting her award this week, as she drew attention to the lack of funding for the arts. However, the momentum of these powerful female authors is growing. In 2019 and 2020, the Stella Count, which is a statistical analysis of gender bias in Australian book reviews, has noted that for the first time since it started in 2012, the ‘representation of women authors in Australian book reviews is on par with that of their male counterparts.’ Dr Melinda Harvey from Monash University noted that these findings are ‘a milestone to be celebrated because equal access to book reviews will make a genuine difference to the lives and reputations of Australian women authors.’ 2

In the final chapter of her essay, Woolf implores her audience to keep writing and to involve themselves in society through the formation of a unique cultural and political identity. She says: ‘Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.’ 3 It is my hope that Shakespeare’s sister lives on in all the young women I teach, as they seek to use their writing and skills of critical analysis to empower themselves. •

1 Announcing the winner of the 2022 Stella Prize · Stella

2 The 2019 and 2020 Stella Counts crash through the gender parity barrier · Stella

3 Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own, 1929