'We're not truckin' around': On and off-road in Samuel Wagan Watson's Smoke Encrypted Whispers

Abstract

Cars and roads traverse the poetry of Samuel Wagan Watson, a self-identified Aboriginal man of Bundjalung, Birri Gubba, German and Irish ancestry. The narrator/s of the poems in 'Smoke Encrypted' Whispers are repeatedly on the road or beside it, and driving is employed as a metaphor for everything from addiction and memory to the search for love. Road kill litters the poems, while roads come to life, cars become men, and men have 'gas tanks that can't see empty'. Watson's poetry has received significant critical attention and acclaim: his 'haunting, uncanny, layered poetics of history' and depiction of 'colonial degradation' have been explored, and his poems-including those featuring cars and roads-have been analysed in relation to such themes as the sacred, locatedness, and creative processes. Given the extent to which cars and roads dominate Watson's poetry, it is notable, however, that his use of both to explore and resist 'colonial degradation' has not received sustained attention.