In her influential book, Silences (1978), Tille Olsen wrote:

Literary history and the present are dark with silences: the years-long silences of acknowledged greats; the ceasing to publish after one work appears; the hidden silences; the never coming to book form at all.

These silences are the silences of women, workers, First Nations People, the marginalised, as Virginia Woolf wrote “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Without the means to write, to speak, or to be heard, we are consigned to silence.

So Rochford Street Review has been silent for a few weeks. After our work on the Sonic Poetry Supplement, the publication of P76 Issue 8 and a trip to Melbourne for the launch, we faced the referendum on the constitutional recognition of First Nations People through a Voice to parliament. As writers and publishers the concept of having a voice is front and centre, and the denial of a voice is an attack on human rights.

The defeat of the referendum and the denial of a voice to our First Nations people came as a huge disappointment and, as result, we joined many First Nations People and their allies in observing a bitter silence in the period after the vote. That period is now over and we are now ready to complete Issue 37 and begin work on Issue 38. In doing so, however, it is important for us to repeat our acknowledgment and gratitude to our First Nations People:

Rochford Street Review is produced within the Country of the Darug and Gundungurra peoples. For Darug and Gundungurra People, Ngurra (Country) takes in everything within the physical, cultural and spiritual landscape – landforms, waters, air, trees, rocks, plants, animals, foods, medicines, minerals, stories and special places. It includes cultural practice, kinship, knowledge, songs, stories and art, as well as spiritual beings, and people: past, present and future. Rochford Press and Rochford Street Review pay respect to Elders past, present and emerging.