Amuk

Khairani Barokka’s uncompromising third collection of poetry amuk sheds light on the devastating and ongoing effects of a single word’s mistranslation, and emphasises what exists in opposition to such hostile histories and presents: hope, resistance, and joy.

Groundbreaking in its use of form and poetics, amuk deconstructs the brutal workings of oppressive systems to examine how, “through macheted etymology”, violence and suffering is replicated through (mis)translation. From linguistic corruption and domination, the poems make connections to the mutilation and ruin caused by an extractive colonialism that destroys whole peoples, cultures, languages, and environments. Through Khairani Barokka’s own recognition of “linguistic cosmology – how stars move and imprint upon the body”, radical poems of fury and prayer look towards the sacred and ancestral, towards survival and continuance, and the vital, living resistance of persisting languages, and resilient peoples.