Wollundry Lagoon & Notes

My poem ''Wollundry Lagoon'' and the accompanying ''Notes on 'Wollundry Lagoon'" are included in the anthology, Notes for the Translators: from 140 New Zealand and Australian poets, ASM Poetry, Macau, 2012, pp. 252-254, edited by Professor Kit Kelen of the University of Macau. Selected poets were asked to submit a single poem and to write notes on the creative process and the language used that would assist its translation into Chinese. In Wiradjuri language ''Wollundry'' means ''place of stones" and the "lagoon" is an "anabranch" of the Murrumbidgee River, and is where the 2km long main street of Wagga bends, half-way between the railway station and the Wiradjuri Bridge over the Murrumbidgee River. In Aboriginal artist Treahna Hamm's triptych of Wagga Wagga in the City Council atrium, Wollundry lagoon is the "womb of Wagga '' a fertile triangular delta around which crowd houses, streets and plants and animals in minute detail. In 2003 the Lagoon was "restored": replanted with native flora and restocked with fauna, an amphitheatre and new walkway around the Lagoon constructed and public artworks by local artists commissioned to enhance the project. The poem references indigenous experience, settlement history and the recent "restoration" through multiple allusions to persons, restoration activities and artefacts, invoking a sense that the place has, in a sense, been "given back to" something of its indigenous origin. 'Notes on 'Wollundry Lagoon'" is the commentary on the creative process behind the poem, explaining the choice of language and image and their regional, historic and cultural context to assist both translators and readers of English as a second language.