Refusal – Tourist Visa to Australia (?)

Someone must really not like me. It took me a while to get over this but I was refused a tourist visa to go visit my parents and brother in Australia for the merry holiday season. I did receive a nice family photo at my 3rd Christmas/New Year family meal that I have missed. I …

#75 – urban planning reads – wk8/52

These are the urban planning related content from Week 8/52: Transport Planning difference from Tokyo and New York https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zysL_lkdtys 2. Zoning and Built Form for Affordable Housing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEsC5hNfPU4 3. Planning "unaffordability" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Flsg_mzG-M

#76 Poetry: Transgressions on walls

This is an exploration of two images; Graffiti and Flowers.

#74 Paperless Poetry

PAPERLESS POETRY IS MORE THAN WORDS.IT'S THE DAWN DANCING ATOP THE SEATHE SILHOUETTES BEYOND THATTHE STARS WHEN THE MOON LEAVESAND THE RAIN ON THATCHED ROOFS.THE SOUND OF HOME AFTER THE LONGEST TIME.IT'S THE SMILE FROM ACROSS THE ROOMIT'S THE SILENCE AFTER THE LAUGHTERTHE FIRST HAND TO TOUCHTHE FIRST STEP OF LIFEFORGETTING TO SAY ITAND REMEMBERING …

#73 Poetry – Disparate

This poem describes a very visceral experience I had to reconcile how fragile my own stage of privilege was. The poem captures a hypothetical where a lady notices poverty, between the alleyways, the exact moment her own privilege is realized, causing her to scurry away in guilt. Alleyways, for me, represent a darker side to the urban environments - as places where things happen in the shadows. It occupies a particular space within popular urban colloquialism as being dark and seedy.

#72 Poetry – For her.

I initially wrote this poem with a friend of mine who was suddenly admitted to hospital. It evolved as a co-written poem and, indeed it still is. I drew from her experience. She allowed herself to be vulnerable.

#71 Prose:”PNG has town planners???”

He walked in ahead of me, shook hands, and wrapped himself into of those large meeting seats that sat around the conference table that took up too much space in the small room.  I took in the room. It was small but it was designed to impress, and impress it did. Their time in the …

#70: (Rain)Drops of Anxiety

Pitter-patter, on roof tops. Rain drops, in down pipes. Pitters of patters slipping, falling. Violent in motion, rushing, gushing, into alleyways - be banks, on streets. Carry raindrops, to drain pipes. Labourious is torrent - be rivers, like Styx. Keep tame, my wild heart. The memory of pitters of patters. The violence of wild water, …

#69: Poem – Stories In Planning

History is built on stories. Our stories connect us to place. As planners, we need to understand these stories, if we do not, we risk employing objectively desensitised approaches to placemaking.

Ketar Natis, Killings and Two Grieving Kinsmen

Crocodile Prize PNG

By (Theresa) Tess Gizoria

Dad and I very rarely sit and chat about little nothings. But on the occasions when I patiently listen to him retelling stories from his childhood, I more often than naught, am transported back in time to a place I can’t picture, with traditional practices and social norms I cannot reconcile with my present reality.

On one of those rare occasions, I learnt about the practise of ‘ketar natis’.

Growing up, dad would tell me how most problems were made right through ‘ketar natis’, a practise similar to, but a little unlike the ‘pay-back killings’ of societies in the highlands of PNG. An eye-for-aneye sort of practise.

The figurative description of the term ketar natis would be equivalent to the pain of a splinter embedded under a fingernail.

Even if the splinter were removed the sore would prove rather painful and could take forever to heal…

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