Cellnight: A Verse Novel

A unique experience. A novel in 'spindle' sonnets. A drama. An impassioned cry for a beautiful and stolen world under threat.

A 'protester' who has been living in a shallow cave in the limestone cliff in front of Bathers Beach under the colonial Round House prison in Fremantle is arrested for demonstrating against the late 80's visit of the nuclear-armed 7th Fleet. In the cells the 'protester' witnesses police violence and threatens to tell what they have seen. An act of declaration becomes entangled with what is happening outside the cells.

This haunting incantation looks back before and after these events, to the present day. The sea, the coast around Fremantle, the 'Scarp', all come into play in a work that attempts to decolonise the space, to contest nuclear, military and colonial power without claiming any rights over country.