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    Holocaust Island
    Holocaust Island
    Holocaust Island
    Ebook90 pages31 minutes

    Holocaust Island

    By Graeme Dixon

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    About this ebook

    This dynamic collection of poetry is the inaugural winner of the David Uniapon Award for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers. Graeme Dixon's ballards speak out on comtemporary and controversial issues, from Black deaths in custody to the struggles of single mothers. Contrasted with these are poems of spirited humour and sharp satire. In Holocaust Island a powerful new voice emerges from a history of displacement.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Queensland Press
    Release dateAug 1, 2012
    ISBN9780702249143
    Holocaust Island

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      Book preview

      Holocaust Island - Graeme Dixon

      Copyright

      HOLOCAUST ISLAND

      Graeme Dixon was born in Perth in 1955. Between the ages of ten and fourteen he lived in a Salvation Army Boys Home, before being expelled from high school. He was in and out of reformatories and at sixteen ended up in Fremantle Prison where he spent most of the next nine years. His first poetry was written in prison.

      At twenty-seven, Graeme Dixon began tertiary study and later completed a course at the Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University) on politics, communications and Aboriginal Studies. He has a strong interest in Aboriginal history and is currently furthering his studies at the University of Western Australia.

      Editorial consultants: Jack Davis

      Oodgeroo Noonuccal

      Mudrooroo Narogin

      Also in this series:

      Paperbark: A Collection of Black Australian Writings, eds Jack Davis, Stephen Muecke, Mudrooroo Narogin and Adam Shoemaker

      Bobbi Sykes, Love Poems and Other Revolutionary Actions

      Forthcoming titles:

      Joe McGinness, memoir Mabel Edmund, life story

      To all our Brothers and Sisters

      who died in custody

      May their souls R.I.P.

      Foreword by Jack Davis

      Graeme Dixon first saw the light of day in Katanning. His was to be a life of almost complete institutionalisation. His mother was Aboriginal, his father a migrant orphan from England who deserted the family of three children when he, Graeme, was two years of age. The next four years he spent in Sister Kate’s home. Circumstances changed for his mother when she married again, but because he bore a resemblance to his father, his stepfather disliked him and in his own words, I kept my distance from him and generally kept my thoughts to myself.

      Upon moving to the Gnowangerup–Borden area in the extreme southwest of the state, his stepfather deserted the family which had now grown to six. Two brothers and three sisters were placed in a home. This time the Salvation Army orphanage. But they were separated, his three sisters were placed in a different home to that of him and his two brothers. In Graeme’s words In the orphanage I soon discovered what type of kid the Salvo’s desired. If you kept quiet and didn’t show too much emotion you were classified as a good boy. Many a time the administration tried to adopt him out, but he would purposely misbehave and they would change their minds. He was eventually not wanted at fourteen years of age for becoming drunk and was also expelled from the Hollywood High School. He was sent back to his

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