Writing on common ground: the lyric essay as a decolonising form

Is it possible for Australian settler writers to decolonise their writing, and if so, what form might this writing take? This paper explores the challenges facing settler writers who wish to respectfully acknowledge the sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and to participate in the movement towards a 'fair and truthful relationship' ('Uluru statement from the heart' 2017). The value of the lyric essay as a poetic form that resists straightforward answers -but rather allows for links to be drawn between the past and the present, complicity and healing, and the land and our experience of it -is explored.