Scott McKinnon: ... Australia. I'd like to begin by acknowledging Australia's First Nations peoples as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land, and give my respect to Elders past and present, and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Thank you for attending this event, coming to you tonight from Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country.

I'm Scott McKinnon. I'm the Assistant Director of Philanthropy here at the National Library, and I'm also a historian, specialising in histories of queer activism, community and culture in Australia.

So with both my philanthropy hat and my queer historian hat on, I'm particularly delighted to be introducing this evening's presentation, RISE RALLY REST by Scott-Patrick Mitchell, the National Library's 2025 Creative Arts Fellow in Australian Writing. Our Creative Arts Fellowships Programme supports researchers to make intensive use of the National Library's rich collections through residencies of four weeks. Fellowships offered by the Library are only made possible by generous philanthropic support. And Scott-Patrick's Fellowship has been supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell is a Western Australian based poet who lives on Whadjuk Noongar country. Their 2022 debut poetry collection, 'Clean', which explores their lived experience as a methamphetamine addict and the consequent recovery and sobriety they carry with them today, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, the WA Premier's Book Awards and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards.

In their presentation this evening, Scott-Patrick will discuss their research with some of the queer archives available here at the National Library and the beginnings of their work on a new poetry collection titled 'RISE RALLY REST'. So please join me in welcoming Scott-Patrick Mitchell.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: Honour to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people on whose land we are gathered here today. Honour also to the Whadjuk Noongar Nation on whose land I live and write. I pay my respects to any First Nation people here in attendance and online, and to all Elders past and present. This Reconciliation Week, I encourage everyone to read First Nation poets, and in particular, West Australian First Nation poets such as Charmaine Papertalk Green and Elfie Shiosaki. And why not support Magabala Books, a West Australian First Nation publisher? We are honoured here to be telling our stories on land where storytelling has existed for tens of thousands of years. I'm humbled to share my stories this evening and the stories of my community with you. Sovereignty was never ceded and this is, was and always will be Aboriginal land. Thank you.

How are we all this evening? Yeah, small but mighty. Fantastic. Hello, my name is Scott-Patrick Mitchell. Yes, my parents were poor and could only afford first names. As you'll notice, it is hyphenated. It's never Scott. It's Scott-Patrick. No offence, Scott. I'm terrified. It feels like an aeon since I have done something like this and I'm so humbled to be here at the National Library of Australia. And my deepest gratitude to the selection panel, to the Fellowships team and to every single member of the National Library of Australia team. We will be discussing my research project, RISE RALLY REST, which explores queer archives and yeah, lots of, lots of fun stuff.

I am the author of a poetry collection called 'Clean', which was published by Upswell Publishing in 2022. And oh, it was apparently shortlisted for Victorian Premier's Literary Award, the WA Premier's Book Award and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry. Wow. I must be okay. It's actually quite an honour to be back in this theatre. This is where I lost the Prime Minister's Literary Awards. Congratulations to Gavin, but the bookshop here at the National Library has agreed to stay open late. You can purchase copies of 'Clean' from them after the show and I'll be happy to sign some copies as well. And yeah.

"So hey, what are your pronouns?" Thanks, PowerPoint. Thanks for asking. So I actually use they/them pronouns. I know, but hey, let's try and use it in a sentence. "I really like what they are wearing. I should compliment them." You totally should. You totally should.

So before we start the presentation proper, libraries are places of stories, images, photographs, oral histories, all of these big concepts and ideas that we as human beings express. A library is a place that contains them, but unfortunately for a poet like me, a library runs on numbers. Without numbers, the Library wouldn't be able to function properly.

So let's begin with a number, 71. And if you thought that was my age, shame on you. No, this isn't the number of collections that I explored or anything like this. This is actually a very human number. In the time of exploring these collections, I read instances of cruelty, police brutality, moments that kind of left me a little bit shocked. And then on the other side of that, there were moments of profound humanity and sincerity and people coming together. So 71, and I kept a tally from the time that I was here, 71 record is the number of times I cried or welled up while doing research here at the National Library of Australia. Ah. No. Now, you might think that's a lot, but hey, I'm a poet. We work on emotions. We cry a lot. So this actually bodes well for me personally as to the emotional content of what I am researching, and hopefully the poetry that I will be presenting after this presentation.

"So what's the tea?" Thanks, PowerPoint. I want to know what the tea is too. I've been exploring archives and the importance of archives. So the archive "is a very process of selecting, ordering the past of making history" and is a space that contains, as stated by Susan Striker, "Commensurable material expressions of assembled knowledges." The archive takes on significant meaning for the LGBTIQA+ community since it becomes a repository that pushes back against systemic violence and erasure, while becoming a focal point of community, solidarity and political progression. It is the space, for example, where we honour achievement, political empowerments, the memories of those we have lost to HIV/AIDS, all the while creating a reference point to equip future generations.

So when I turned 18 in 1995, I started clubbing and I would go out to the bars and I would talk to gentlemen at the bars. And over the period of six weeks, I'd get to know them, we'd share stories. I'd listen to their stories more than anything because I was interested in what they had to say. And then they would disappear. This happened again and again and again, until finally, I went up to the resident leather daddy, Nana Neal, and I said, "What is happening?" And he goes, "Oh, sweetie." And he explained to me that these gentlemen had passed away from HIV/AIDS. In that moment, I realised that queer life is ephemeral. It is fleeting at best, and if we persevere, it will leave a mark.

I started collecting newspaper articles about queer events. I started collecting nightclub flyers. I started developing an archive of my own at the age of 18 and I still have it, and this is my way of holding onto a history that I grew up through. So queer archives "swell with the complex measures of joys and our struggles against annihilating silence", and "are often archives of feelings" that "create emphatic links to enigmatic pasts". They allow us "to think critically about systems of oppression and the interlocking mechanisms of the personal and the political". For me, archives are points of potential, bodies through which we move and comprehend. From them, we can empower future generations by bringing with us the past's resilience, strength and necessary compassion.

At the core of my research is the idea around how poetry can collapse time and thus create a link to the past, one amplified by the material of the queer archive. As Barbara McBain has stated, "An archive often seems out of sync with the present", and the material within creates an interaction that is "beyond the archive" and "uncanny like the unexpected appearance of a ghost." This expands on what Joan Nestle refers to as the archive being "a wild place, reflecting the anxieties of the present, questioning the certainties we called into being". The aim of my project is to explore the uncanny wild places in queer archives and bring them into the present through a series of poems that collapse, that explore time and the collapsing of time and how "queer time is time made unstable, unfixed".

"Ah, cool concepts, but what's it all for?" Thanks for asking, PowerPoint. I really like your sass tonight. So I'm working on a poetry collection called 'RISE RALLY REST'. It is my love letter to my community. It is a gift for future generations of queer people, of queer young people. So the poetry collection explores the rise of queer activism in the 70s that led to the first Mardi Gras, how my community chose to rally around those living with HIV/AIDS in the 80s and 90s, and how queer bodies come to rest or age into life/suburbia. This section also explores key moments in queer activism from 2000 onward, including the 88 Pieces of Legislation, progressions in HIV medicine, safe schools, marriage equality and contemporary issues happening now, such as our erasure in the United States and the threat that possibly has here in Australia.

More than anything though, this collection is about honouring my inner child. Now, did anyone here ever read the 'Fighting Fantasy' books when they were a kid? Just for the audience at home, nobody put their hand up. So 'Fighting Fantasy' role-playing books were these incredible books that I basically spent a lot of time reading. And I remember my mom saying, "Yeah, you really should be studying for your geography exam." And I am pleased to say that I proved her right. I got 45% in the TE, but hey, I did well in English. As an act of honouring and inspiring my inner child and others, I want to use specific elements from these books. The 'Fighting Fantasy' books were all written in second person, "You." They were all, "You, you are doing this, you must roll for strength, you must roll for agility." And it was exciting because you're right there in the middle of what was happening. So the collection uses, "You." It places, "You," directly into the poem. It also uses, "We," "Us." So the use of, "You," drops the reader into the action whilst, "We, Us, "that is a narrator who gathers all readers across all timelines and makes sure that they are safe, that they belong.

"So like you've just been reading books to write a book?" Hey, PowerPoint, you're meant to be on my side. No, I have been exploring oral histories. So my mother has turned 90 this year. She was born in 1935 in India. She has led a rather remarkable life, and the one thing she loves to do is tell you stories about it, and she will tell you stories and stories. And if she doesn't have a story to tell, she'll tell you about the book she's just read. And if she hasn't just read a book, she'll tell you about the film she's just watched. And if you don't pay attention, you better watch out.

So I have lived in a family that shares stories all the time, and so I'm fascinated with oral histories. I even became a journalist and insisted on doing feature interviews so that I could talk to people. And in the time that I worked in queer media, I talked to people like Jimmy Somerville, Moby, Peaches, and I got to talk to them about their stories and write their stories just for feature articles, but still, I got to listen to people talk about their stories and that inspired me.

So whilst here at the National Library of Australia, I've been exploring three major collections, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Oral History Project, the Australian Response to AIDS Oral History Project for the National Library of Australia and the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, and also the LGBTIQ Pioneers Oral History Project for the National Library of Australia. This presentation this evening will cover the first two. The last one has, I've only been exploring it this week so I can't really tell you much. But yeah, so I've been exploring these queer archives and certain ephemera and certain manuscripts and documents left by queer people to the Library.

Now, in the course of reading these, there is a wonderful interviewer called James Waites. And in an interview with Julie McCrossin, James said, "What I try to do with interviews with people is to leave what I call a scent trail for historians." And I found that I would read or listen to one oral history, and then I would ask a question, and the next one would answer it. And this kind of progression happened and I felt as though the archive was kind of responding to me. It was cute.

Another way of looking at it is imagine that the dot in the centre is the event, whatever the event may be. Each corner is a different perspective by which people approach the event. People are going to arrive early and people are going to arrive late. So that is where they're standing in relation to the event. So people coming from one perspective early are going to tell you a completely different story about the event compared to somebody from say, this bottom corner who arrives late. All of these stories are valid. All of these stories give you a different perspective of the event, a texture, a richness, a tapestry, and yeah, that's as about as good at art as I get.

So questions I've been asking when approaching these oral histories include: what is the event and what significance does it have for the interviewee? From what perspectives is the interviewee approaching the event? How directly involved with the event were they? How much time has passed since the event and the recording of the oral history? What is the queer social context of the year the oral history was recorded? And this became very important in relations to, especially in regards to the HIV/AIDS, oral histories, and also in around 2010, 2011, Mardi Gras oral histories, when they were talking about marriage equality and the kind of little undertone of anger that was there at that time. So I'm so grateful for my past as a queer journalist and being able to recognise the queer social context.

I also asked, what does this oral history contain that might be of importance for future generations? And where is the poetry or the poem in the way the interviewee discusses the event? I can't tell you my secrets in regards to that one. I am sorry, but you will hear some poems.

"Slay queen, so what have you found?" Thanks, PowerPoint. You like me again. So we'll start with the Sydney Gay Lesbian Mardi Gras Oral History Project. So the 1970s, as Cath Phillips pointed out, "Was a period of political and philosophical flux and intellectual exploration." And as Julie McCrossin has pointed out, "People just wanted social change, not to be illegal, not to be a mental illness." Remember, at this time, homosexuality was still illegal, and we even had a code in the International Classification of Diseases. How fabulous? We became a number. Great. Thankfully, we have progressed somewhat since then.

So moving into the specifics of Mardi Gras, and I just want to set up some of the history for you. So on May the 1st, 1978, a letter arrives from San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Committee, received by Ron Austin and Anne Talve. This letter asks if Sydney's queer activists would like to hold an Australian event to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that took place in New York in 1969. Very importantly, in May 21st to 27, there is the first gay film festival held at the old Paris Cinema. Ron, in his oral history with James Waites, recounts how he went and he saw 'Word is out', a 1977 documentary, and he was inspired. And then a quote. "And we, Kim Skinner and I, said to Margaret McMahon, "Listen, how about the idea of a street party to round off the Stonewall cele-?" And without missing a beat, Margaret says, "Oh, you mean a Mardi Gras?"

So in that moment, the name is born and stays for quite a long, well, until now. And as Kimberly O'Sullivan recounts in her 1990 article for the 'Sydney Star Observer', 'The First Mardi Gras', which I highly recommend reading, "The idea of a nighttime Mardi Gras parade where we danced and sang and enjoyed and were blatant and outrageous was positively exhilarating and a very new political act." So on the morning of Saturday, June 24th, 1978 is the day of International Gay Solidarity. People meet. They have a conference. Then that evening, revellers meet in Taylor Square and proceed down Oxford Street for what becomes known as the first Mardi Gras. At Hyde Park, police confiscate the truck leading the procession. Angered attendees march up to Kings Cross where they're confronted by police. A riot ensues. 53 people are arrested and that night, a vigil takes place outside Darlinghurst Police Station.

Monday, June 26, those arrested appear before a magistrate at Central Court. Police block public access, a tussle ensues. Seven more people are arrested. 'Sydney Morning Herald' publishes the names of the 53 people who are arrested. This leads to people losing their jobs. This leads to people being outed to their families, losing their homes. Some commit suicide.

July 15th, 1978, they start the Drop the Charges campaign and march through the city. Another police tussle. Another 14 people arrested.

August 27th, 1978. On the third day of the fourth National Homosexual Conference, Drop the Charges continues. 400 people march to Taylor Square. A further 74 are arrested, with another 30 later on at a protest in Hyde Park.

Somewhere between August and June 1979, the charges are predominantly dropped. In commemoration, they hold a second Mardi Gras. With bated breath, they march through the streets and the police do not attack. It happens again in 1980, '81, '82, and has continued now until what we know as the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. This is a very brief history and I know that there are historians here.

One of the quotes that stuck out to me the most by Julie McCrossin, and we love Julie McCrossin, who you probably know for her coverage of Mardi Gras on the ABC and such. She said, "The whole Mardi Gras for me is always about the young teenager who's worried they're gay." It's visibility. It shows that we can survive. It shows that we can celebrate. It shows that we can use our wit to outwit. For me, that young teenager watching those Mardi Gras on television felt as though there was promise beyond high school.

Now, in the Australian response to AIDS Oral History Project for the National Library of Australia and Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, there was an immense amount of heartbreak. It was a challenging read and listen, but I persevered because it was important to hear these stories.

A freelance AIDS consultant and HIV positive man interviewed by James Waites described it best, "We were terrified in the 1980s. The whole country was terrified, absolutely terrified." As Paul Quigg points out, Sydney in the 1980s, people were "socially stricken, physically stricken, mentally stricken." "There were people dying every day. There were skeletons walking along the street." "Life became very fast, as fast as the virus was working, as fast as people were dying, as fast as people were spending, as crazy as the world was becoming." "And the urgency was life because there was no cure, there was no future."

Predominantly, these oral histories took place in the 1990s and I wish I could travel back through time and tell them that we have made such progress, that now when somebody is diagnosed with HIV, they can take one pill as opposed to the 12, they can take one pill a day and they can become undetectable, which means untransmittable. Young queer people can now take PREP, which has such a high efficacy that it blocks the transmission of HIV. Safe sex is still the safest sex you can have, but we have made so much progression.

And then as if in response to my grief, the archive spoke back and blessed me with this oral history, which is one that I encourage everyone to listen to. Reverend Jim Dykes interviewed by Martyn Goddard. Jim has led the most incredible life. This man's story needs to be made into a movie. It was so incredible and moving and profound, and as a pastor, as a reverend, he tells a story of a high-profile gay man in Sydney passing away. They contact the funeral parlour, who provide them with a body bag and a coffin, but they will not attend to the body. The person passes away. The lover and a friend wash the body. They then lift the body into the body bag and they zip it closed, and all of the friends gather around and they lift the body bag, they carry it down the stairs, they place it into the coffin where the funeral attendants are, downstairs at this house, who then put the lid on the coffin. Of this moment, Reverend Jim Dykes says, "For me, it was a moment of grace. It was a moment of knowing how powerful gay love, any love, but that was gay love, was. It was a moment of what it must have been like to take Christ from the cross for Mary, for the disciples. It was all of those things. It was always in my depressed and ready to give up times. I think back to that and I'm renewed."

There were moments of such compassion and love in the midst of this crisis. There were moments of such profound humanity, and I hope that the poetry that I have written, unfortunately I will not be sharing specifically some of those poems. I do think they are perhaps a little heavy for this audience this evening. I apologise, but I hope eventually, the whole collection will capture this kind of love, this kind of strength, this kind of compassion.

And I feel blessed to have read and listened to so many voices, and I want to express my deepest, deepest gratitude to the National Library of Australia for what has been one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. It has taught me a lot, it has shown me a lot and I feel empowered. And hopefully, I can take that on and give it to future generations, and not even future generations, the generations here now, and inspire them in some capacity.

This is the end of the formal kind of presentation. Sorry it's not too history heavy. I'm sorry. I'm not a historian. I do want to say thank you. That is my email address, in case you want to write me. That's my Instagram, in case you want to follow me. If perchance you know of any further funding or fellowships that I can pursue that might help this, please contact me. And hey, if there's somebody watching and they want to be a patron, hit me up. Slide into my DMs.

Now, do you want some poetry? Well, first of all, let me just slip into something a bit more comfortable. Much better. Are you ready to RISE RALLY REST? Then let us RISE RALLY REST.

It's always important to have a reveal. Some notes on the concept of time and how to travel through history. Hello and welcome. You are about to embark on an adventure through time and space, all while sitting perfectly still. Before we begin, know that the concept of time you are familiar with is flawed. The idea of moving from point A to point B is in a progression of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years. Oh, how dull. If we may be blunt, time is far too straight. We ask that you take a moment to remove all timepieces and place them in the nearest bin. If one isn't available, may we suggest taking a moment to get up and place it in the middle of a road and let oncoming traffic crush the mechanism beneath velocity and momentum. We will wait.

Done? Good. Now, hold out your hand. We bequeath you with queer time, or as we sometimes call it, QT. In queer time, objects will appear closer than they are. They will lean in, they will hold you. If something resonates, linger around it. If something resonates, linger with it. Let it encompass you. Know that dirt and debris hold the most value. This, the material that the archive refuses to archive. Forget chrononormativity, that sequence of events, that is for the white picket fence. Alternate your being and how you can be. How you become depends on how you embrace survival. The crisis. In the margin, write so many notes on how to live life that it is what the reader reads first.

Speaking of reading, do it for the filth, the shade, the house down boots, mama slay and then slay again. We will be your mother. We will care for you through this. We will be here to shoulder because you are sacred. You are holy. You are the cutie within QT. We will return you to the exact spot at which you left. Queer time is waiting. So strap in, strap on, strap out. Let us begin. Not with a whimper but a pout. Kisses darling. Mwah. Mwah. We shall see you on the other side. Roll the transmission, and you're allowed to clap.

So that will be theoretically the opening to the manuscript, and then it'll travel back through time and it will take people to queer events that happen, proceeding, and then lead. Oh no, it starts with the beginning, which is the letter arriving, and then it travels back through time to queer events, which then leads up to this poem. Content warning for police brutality and homophobia. This is in three parts and so far, it is called the First Mardi Gras.

One. Tonight, revolution. Tonight shall be a riot, but not yet. For now, you are a procession, dressed as a parade, dressed as a party, pink with glitter. Come, join our throng. Let's hitch down the ass crack of Oxford Street. Call for the clones to come out of the closet of their bars. You are making, you are becoming, history and herstory, our story. The people are gay. Gay as in happy, gay as in jubilant, gay as in gay, lesbian, trans, bisexual, gay as in illegal before the eyes of the law of the time in your diaphragm. Three words are forming.
Not many dress up, but those who do bring hue to the streets. Behold the essential drag queen who will multiply over time. Behold a scarecrow in search of her brain. Behold the Pope blessing us, deeming us holy. Gather in Taylor Square, beside the sacred beat where in years to come, ghosts will gather. But for now, you have hired a yellow truck. This, the brick that paves a route through the Emerald City. On the front of it, a sign reads, "Repeal all anti-homosexual laws and end police harassment of homosexuals." Who said poetry was dead?

This, the first float to ever exist in Sydney Mardi Gras. Hitched on the back, from the crackle of a hired sound system, two songs play back to back. Choose your anthem. 'Ode to a Gym Teacher' by Meg Christian, a liberto that sows the strength of women in the moments and decades to come, or 'Sing If You Are Glad To Be Gay' by Tom Robinson Band. The lyrics, a harbinger of the violence that awaits beside a fountain.

In Peaches, you hear word of what is happening out there. On the bitumen, you go down to have a look. Your eyes, your eyes glistening with pride. You race back upstairs. Order everyone to down their drinks, go outside. The chant is a demand to take a stand and keep walking out of the bars and into the streets. See our kin emerging, polyvalent bodies as pollen populating the asphalt statement. The Golden Mile has never been so alive, so bright with possibility. Somebody you will never see again runs out of a club and exclaims, "I'm out and I'm going all the way." This is what it means to be gay, as is what happens next.

Two. It is freezing. As if a witch's tit, the throng is a pert nipple aroused. The police too are aroused, but not in the same way. They want you gone. Move on. Go faster, faster. The truck is erratic. A single piece of traffic speeding up, slowing down. The cops' breathing curls as baited mist, the way a predator calculates the weight of a fawn running. In your lungs, three words are taking form. Turn onto College Street. Here, the cops come to commandeer the truck. They try to pull you from the driver's seat. Instead, a cloak of women encircle you, exchange your uniform cap for a straw hat. Your vest is peeled off. They drape you in a shawl, in shroud, in a cloak of invisibility. You disappear dressed as a girl. On your left, Hyde Park. This is the provision at which the permit expires, but the cops in infinite wisdom and with infinite jest confiscate your microphone, confiscate your megaphone.

How on a cold night where sound taps down quicker to the ground than it does in summer, are you meant to tell approximately 1,000 people to disperse? "Go home. Thanks for coming. This is now over." You can't. "To the cross," someone cries. The burden of sin is a beautiful thing. Carry it on your shoulders. Let the 300 pounds of a lowercase 't' be slung. Those nails will be driven in by batons. Here, you splinter. Some of you know that the darkness of Williams Street harks the brutality of straights. Turn back now. Other aspects of you can hear the thrill of police realising this is not a drill to close off Sin City. The red lights shall be entwined with blues bruise, and still the parts of you are ready for what is to come. So go, march on. This splintering is the fracture that occurs beneath a cop's boot. This is going to happen.

Three. This is the end, but this is also the beginning. In your larynx, three words burning, undress a party dressed as a parade, dressed as a procession. Strip it bare, there, a protest all to familiar in skin, naked curves and vulnerable breath glistening. See where the abrasion will be placed. See up ahead, police vans streaming into space. The light, a discotheque. Your souls filled with the chant of a raised fist. Anger of the Coca-Cola sign, the cops start kettling, "On, sinner. Down, darling hers. For now, you are the pigs and we are the slaughterers." Ruckus, rumpus, ruction. Hear how those words jostle on the tongue?

Your clamour is a glamour, a magic that calls even more souls to spill from the bars, the nightclubs to join you. Join your throng. A siren song. See people spill from windows, down awnings. This night is alive with the thrill of the electric. Your bodies are the beat, a metric that causes a critical mass. Something snaps at the fountain. There is nowhere to go. Turn back, side streets blocked off by paddy waggons. You, the herd. You've been heard and they have had enough. That thin blue line never really existed, and the batons come, a choir of whacks, thwacks. Attack, attack, but you shall not submit. Not now, not when you have painted these streets with the throb of your love. Now they shall be bathed in your blood. Tonight was a revolution. Now, tonight is a riot.

When commemorating Stonewall, who knew that the spirit of 1969 would lean in so close and say, "Hey, you know what would really honour this? Police brutality." Now fight and you do, for your lives. Remember child, you are not you, but rather you and you and you. You are multitude, you are plural. You, scream, you, shout, you, twist your wrist inside a handcuff's mouth. You, run. You, be kissed by baton. You, witness the flash from media's camera who capture your anguish, eternal in photograph. You, in a split second, between the beating of the fist and your heart wonder if you'll be outed, if you will still have a job tomorrow. If you can make those mortgage payments. You, use a garbage can lid as a shield, as a weapon. You, roll beneath a car, hold your girlfriend close.

Imagine the driver returns, crushes your bodies beneath. You, know the intimacy of a police officer's knee. You, know the beauty that is the crammed, confessional of a waggon paddy. You are carried away in the sea. You could click your heels three times and you do. And the wizard takes away your friends of Dorothy. 53 of you are arrested. The street's hum dissipates, and here, in the disbelief, startled by the harrowing of halogen, three words spill out from your bloody lips. "Happy Mardi Gras". The revolution truly begins. Thank you.
So that was really fun writing that here and spending a whole day writing that poem after reading and listening to so much about Mardi Gras. Yeah, these are all first edits by the way, besides the final poem. So be nice.

Advice from your HIV positive friend on how to live life, which this was collected from a series of oral histories or soup. And they say to you, "it's a fact of life that everyone dies. Some people know they won't be here to outlive you. That is a gift of time, of sharing, of making the most of what you have left together. So be together, walk, let yourselves be startled by the wild fox at the beat, the rabbit running across a lawn, the magpie who sings as you picnic watching a sunset."

You know that one friend who when you're sick, they will insist that you eat soup, and even offer to make soup and to bring soup over because soup for them is a holy grail of fix-all? Well, that friend is your body, sending out cues to you that yes, there are ways to care for the self that include the hot broth of a garden reduced to a ladle. Your body will speak in pulsing code. A little niggle here, bright flash there. If those niggles or flashes persist, that's your friend insisting on soup.

Listen, take time to rest. Grief too is a gift. It is the colour of love inverted, a negative that captures the still, a moment that when poured full of lights can recreate the image. Calamity is a reason to stop, but everything else. That's the reason to keep moving. Don't be ashamed of therapy, of the counsellor, of sitting in a room talking about yourself. Remember, you love talking about yourself. It's your favourite topic. So yes, a stranger deserves to hear your stories, especially a stranger trained to hear the strain in your voice, the way you fidget, the way you squirm when you talk about all of the friends that you have lost and how each and every single one of them told you to keep moving.

Let someone love you. Let a dog lean its jaw in your lap. Let a cat prove that sometimes love has to be earned. Most importantly though, when you go to a funeral, take someone with you so their shoulder can be a vessel that collects the wet shudder of your sob. After all, the supra-sternal notch was designed to become a lake. So fill it with all that you've got.

And if all else fails, look for me. I'll be there in the wild fox, in the startling rabbit. But dear Lord, I will not be there in the sunset because child, I ain't sticking around every day just to make sure that you are okay. I have politicians and bureaucrats to haunt, but I will be there in the steam, rising from the soup.
Thank you. Still got time. Still got time.

Two more poems. So bear with me. I wrote this one last night, so this is like real first draught. Yesterday, poets.org shared a poem by Frank Bidart called 'Queer'. So I wrote a poem in response to it. This would appear in the rest section like the final chapter. Content warning for domestic violence and homophobia. It's in five parts.

One. If you don't understand the pain of the past, you won't know when you are repeating it. In this age, we have everything at our fingertips, yet still choose ignorance, not because it's easy, but because it is pretty to be dumb. They chat to AI as if it can discern the nuance of a crisis and then skim over the output. Say, "Yeah, they've heard about that." So what? That was then. This is now. And with one keystroke, we are erased from government websites. Community guidelines roll back. Someone spits on you in the street. You make a TikTok about it and get 768 likes. Good. It took you two hours to set up the right lights and edit.

Two. Closets are for monsters. Wire hangers, maul. Back then, this was sanctuary, a place we hid when bruises, knuckled, father's fist, red, as if you can beat the gay away. We burned that house down, fled, found kin beneath mirror balls. A family can be chosen. Some days we are still running, still running.

Three. You come out to your mother again and again. This is not a static point. Body and flux loves to leap, loves to lap, lexicon into Eddie of lagoon. Break over reef, big splash into rip of language. We have so many words for what we can be. This should make you happy, and it does. Around your heels, schools of little fish swim.

Four. One day, your mum will use the right pronouns. Fracture in the right way. Sunlit smile, heightened by wet salt. She fears for your safety. Asks you to buy her a pride pin, even though she never leaves the house. Attaching it to her blouse, you prick your thumb. Notice how she doesn't flinch at the sight of your blood. "At last," you think.

Five. On the party strip, crimson sidewalk slurs. They do this outside a gay club. A flock of drag queens descend. You are lifted up by the hairspray in their wigs. Such angels have always existed. They saved us once. Now it is your turn. Ascend. Thank you. You've been fabulous.

Thank you, you've been fabulous. One final poem. So this is one I've written a while ago, but I feel, when I wrote this, I knew that this was going to be the final poem of RISE RALLY REST, and I've been performing it a few times. I really like this poem. It doesn't have a title still though, which is quite unique. Usually they always have a title. Content warning for homophobia and homophobic violence.

When I die, I will not die at the hands of a bigot. Instead, let me be crushed by a pile of books. Or fall so madly in love, my heart bursts. Or let me pass away reciting a poem, which is to say, I want to leave this life as loudly as I lived on every stage. I do not wish to go peacefully, but I wish peace on you. My alphabet kin, my elves who drove through Sydney streets on a Saturday nights, breaking up homophobic fights. This is why they now open every parade. My G's who curve the rainbow of themselves into themselves, my B's, who will never be silent. My T's so brilliant in becoming. My blessed MB's, so delicate in defying.

When I am gone. Keep fighting. Let your voice become the brick, the placard, the stoned walls, the raised fist, the pansy blooming from blood on a sidewalk. We are so used to being called sin, we have become holy. See the saints come marching in, dressed in drag. Oh, kings. Oh, queens. Our anthems are for everybody. So come dance with us, beneath the mirror balls because skin was made to sweat and we can teach you how to shine crystalline and divine. When I am gone, I will come back as a ghost to make sure you are still fighting, still loving, still getting up onto a stage to spit your rage into the shape of a microphone. And if you are not, I will haunt you because you can't keep a good poet down. Now, if you are here and you are queer or an ally, cheer for me loud. Hark, I can hear the angels sing.
Thank you. Any questions?

Scott McKinnon: Thank you so much, Scott-Patrick. That was absolutely wonderful. I've been writing notes madly and the one at the top of this page just says, "Time is far too straight," which is what I'm taking with me from this. That was beautiful. It was a love letter to a community, but a love letter to an archive as well.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: Yes.

Scott McKinnon: Which as a queer historian and librarian, was just a beautiful thing to hear. We do have time for questions, whether they're straight or queer, or whatever. Would anyone like to ask a question? And if you do have a question, please wait for a microphone to come to you so that the people online can hear us as well. No?

Audience member 1: What was your writing process as you were evaluating the historical material that you'd encountered? Did you write at the end of the day? Were you jotting notes as you went? How did the material that you encountered inspire you and how did you translate it into poetry?

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: Cool. Very good question. Well, if you read my first book, which is available for purchase upstairs after the show, if you read my first book, I have a very sordid past of dabbling in illicit substances. So I'm very, very worried that one day my memory might collapse. So I, for my writing process, what I do is I take the concept and I place it into my body, into my memory, and I keep on checking on them. And at the moment, I have about 15 in there from this. So I need to write the notes down once, and I'll probably do it on the plane back. But I like to place them inside my body so that they can foster and grow. And this way, my memory is also checking in every day to make sure they're all still there. There's nothing worse than losing one of your kids, checking that they're all still there and that they're all still growing and taking in knowledge. So I allow that process.

Poems like the last one that I read, fell out pretty much straightaway, and some of them have happened like that, but I have taken the concepts and yeah, there's about 15 or more in there that are just kind of fostering and growing. So I will write the notes down, but more than anything, it's creating the space for them to come out. Thank you. Yes. Oh.

Audience member 2: Hi Scott-Patrick. I think we've met in the Library before.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: Yes.

Audience member 2: And I just wanted to say, I think you can use the word historian if you want to, based on this presentation. As a professional historian, I think we'd be happy to have you. But I'm really curious of how this experience of listening to oral histories and dealing with historical materials, how do you feel like it's shaped you as a poet? It seems like you've already got experience through your past of interviewing, and has it given you any passion to also maybe create, you mentioned you're already kind of creating your own archive, but has it made you also want to maybe create oral histories?

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: I've always been fascinated with the idea of creating oral histories. One of the main ways that it has informed me, and it is shaping, listening to the inflexion and the way that people talk and the way that people tell their stories and realising. So being a queer person and then being in a lot of straight places, you adapt a lot of kind of characters and fronts. And so realising that these oral histories are voices that you can lean into so you can take the inflexion and the way that they speak and write a poem in that style as well. So that's one of the ways that it has worked.

When I go back home, I'm going to be in the process of recording a lot of my mum's, she won't let me record it, record it. And the funniest part is she wants me to write a book, but I'm not allowed to publish it until she passes away. But I will be sitting down and recording a lot of her stories because I've realised now the way questions work to create answers that open up into new spaces. So it's really helped me with that. Thank you.

Audience member 3: Thanks, Scott-Patrick. I think we've all fallen in love with your mum a little bit too. She sounds gorgeous.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: It happens every time. Every time. Yeah. So in the first book, yeah, she's in there a lot and the best part is she hates people.

Audience member 3: My question's not dissimilar to yours, and I'm thinking, the performance of your poetry is just beautiful.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: Thank you.

Audience member 3: It's the musicality. It's an oral medium. And because you're using oral histories as a source, is it the content of the history or is it the musicality in the voice that you're listening to that is the bigger inspiration for you in translating that into a poem?

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: That is really good. That's a really good question. I want to give the pageant answer and say both. I want to say both, but more than anything, it's those historical moments that really hit you hard. But then also, it was interesting listening to some of the oral histories and the poems starting to talk and go, "Hey, yeah, what if you look at it from this perspective?" And so look at the poem, create a poem from this. And so it is this interesting facet of both. But there are those historical moments where all of a sudden, it's just like, "Oh," particularly Reverend Dykes' quote. That was a moment where I burst into tears and I had to leave the Special Reading Room and just gather myself. Some moments like that really... Yeah, that's kind of where, yeah. Does that answer the question? Thank you. Yes.

Audience member 4: Hi. Thanks so much, Scott-Patrick. I'm still absorbing and in awe of your performance and your talk.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: Thank you.

Audience member 4: Trying to formulate the question. Mine is on, I was struck by the 71, the times that you'd cried and being so overwhelmed. And I wonder what sustains you throughout this? If you could talk a bit about what sustains you? I've only read a little bit of your poetry and hearing it, you mentioned some even Christian motifs, like the cross and things. If you could speak about sustaining you and anything like that?

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: Yeah, so I'm not Christian by any means. I was raised Christian. So everything that I include that is Christian is me pushing back against that. And yeah, my mum and I having long discussions about who would've been gay and stuff in the Bible. She's got some opinions.

So honestly, I've reached a point in my life where I consume or come across queer media, like music videos and artists singing and the music videos or the story or whatever it is that they're creating, is queer. It's blatantly queer, realising that I didn't have that as a teenager, but the world has this now. That sustains me. The knowledge that creating something like this to give to the world, it might sustain somebody else. It might even make them realise that the queer history is just so incredibly important.

And it is because this is what empowers our queer culture and our visuals and our aesthetics is because we have this wealth of imagery that we can go, "Hey, if I include this, the straights aren't going to get it. But all those little queer kids are going to go, "Oh, I know what that handkerchief means. Ta ta ta. I know what you get up to," and all that kind of stuff. So it adds that there is this history. And so it's this realisation that I've reached a point where I have survived my adolescence. I have come into a place where I can honour that scared teenager, and I can inspire brave teenagers to be braver.

Scott McKinnon: That might be a pretty beautiful point to end on. I will just say, I knew Ron Austin, who you referenced in, whose idea the Mardi Gras was. He died a few years ago. He was a beautiful man. I can say I've sat there listening to that poem thinking, "Ron would've loved this." It was such a testament to his legacy. So I think that was incredibly beautiful. Thank you.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: Thank you, Scott.

Scott McKinnon: A couple more little plugs before we leave. The National Library's website is the place where you can find recordings of other recent talks and performances. None of them will include a reveal. None of them will include a sassy PowerPoint, but you can go on and then watch them if you will.

And now is the point where we are all going to race upstairs to the bookshop and buy a copy of 'Clean'. I think Scott-Patrick is hanging around for a little while. If you have any other questions, you can chat to him and, sorry, them, and they might even sign your book for you. Thank you for attending this session and let's say thank you again to Scott-Patrick.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell: Thank you, everyone.