Soothing Traffic
By Gareth Jenkins
Contained emotion
in the play area
where kids come to see mums;
so many goodbyes.
We played hopscotch
skipping stones.
Listened to her songs
with poetic ears.
No poems were written
down
One by one the girls left
to record their voices
in a small room
on the dat.
They came back smiling
after something difficult
but done, over
and out into her singing:
voice soothing traffic
coming in
from the out side.
'Soothing Traffic' was commissioned as part of Red Room Poetry's Unlocked program, held at NSW's Dillwynia Correctional Centre in 2012. Staff and residents were visited by poets Johanna Featherstone, Ali Cobby Eckermann and Gareth Jenkins, who engaged participants in a series of poetry workshops.
Identification was a major topic of discussion throughout the workshops, as poets and participants explored the importance of finding or developing an identity, especially for Indigenous Australians, and the role that poetry can play in this process. As with all Unlocked projects, the final outcome was a print anthology.