And the Waves
Is poetry writing labour? Perhaps I am so damaged that I don’t consider writing poetry labour. Every weekend I replenish myself by collapsing and every week I work within a system that is hideous and greasy, that remains ineffective in dealing with whatever it claims to tackle. I am essentially the system: ineffective, hideous, greasy…confused. I profit from the work I do, from the system that I am. Then I confront myself. Then I turn to poetry. And if I am successful, I want my poetry to resemble the way my body labours, like the waves, coming and keep coming. There seems no beginning nor end in labour. Across borders of gender, language, immigration, language, experience, and the lyric 'I', I position myself as a non-Subject that confronts Capitalism in my own turn/term. Divided into five sections, And the Waves investigates the ethics of producing/'labouring' poetry. I (and 'I') am essentially not Australian (whatever that means), you see.
Luoyang Chen was born and raised in a small town in Fujian, China, and they are residing on the unceded Whadjuk Noongar Boodja (otherwise known as Perth, Western Australia). Luoyang is the author of Flow (Red River/Centre for Stories, 2023), and their poems have been published in journals, such as Overland, Cortide, Rabbit, APJ, APA, Portside Review, The Suburban Review, and Westerly. Luoyang's poetic interests include the lyric “I”, labour, language, migration, and the body
