About Komninos ZervosKomninos Zervos was born in Richmond Victoria in 1950. Komninos is well-known on the circuit as a performance poet, but long nights on the road has taken his art form into digital age. Komnino's poems are a playful combinition of social commentary, autography and farce. He uses shambolic rhythms in his poems, forming undisciplined structures but his poems are always amusing and authentic. He works and dedicates himself not only on poetry, but as well on expressing his compassion towards the disadvantaged Australians and those who live on the margins of culture or society in Australia. In his poems, he gives each type of distintive individuals, who represents a group of people sharing the same identity, an unique voice. Each voice of his urges recognition and unity.
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About Aboriginal reconciliation and the will of KomninosIn its broad sense, "Reconciliation" means "coming together". The way how we interpret the word is "to unite and bring together Aboriginal people and Torres Straight Islanders and other white Australians". We need reconciliation, because of the past crimes and actions that the old governments had done to the innocent indigenous people. Among those crimes, the incident of the Stolen Generations was the most cruel and heartless. Currently, both the governments and the leaders of the aboriginal people are seeking reconciliation, as it is beneficial and a common interest to the whole society. Komninos can help in this issue: it is one of his pursuits to deliver as a medium the voices of distinctive and different people to every viewers of this website. Also, as a performance poet, Komninos is capable of writing poems for the aboriginal and speak for them. So please, if you are reading this, go and check out some Komnino's poems and feel his passion and proficiency in expressing his compassion to the disadvantaged in the society.
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Special poems by Komninos representing unique voices:
Back to Melbourne - The Voice of the Bohemians
Back to Melbourne is a poem by Komninos speaking in bohemian voice and language. He wrote in first person to allude the fact he was once a melbournian (even if he currently is) and he was finding his past. The title has two meanings: one is saying that he once lived in Melbourne and he now goes back for a visit, another saying that he is going back to his past, his memories. Lots of language techniques were employed, for instance, enjambment between lines, alliteration on words and assonance, in order to strengthen and emphasise his voices as a bohemian artist. This bohemian voice aims to represent the group of people who live with unconventional lifestyles, often in the company of people who share the same identity. In this context, bohemians are those involving musical, artistic or leterary pursuits and are often wanderers, adventurers and vagabonds. Komninos gives these people a voice in order to give us and government a reference, which leads us to a deeper understanding of such culture and characters in our real life society.
Hillston Welcome - The Voice of the authentic countryside Australians
Hillston Welcome is another poem by Komninos, speaking in the authentic and simple local Australian's voice. Komninos used colloquial and slang languages under free verse structure, for instance, "bikie" and "truckie" and "ya" and all these informal languages are in order to portray a typical Australian voice on the edge of geography and they do create images of such characters in our real life. The title of course is an irony as in the contents there isn't really a welcome, but rather the authentic and real countryside Australian's voice. Komninos gives these people a voice in order to portray an image and give us a reference and allows us to get closer to the Aussie's culture.
Eat - The Voice of the migrants
Eat is a longer poem compared to previous ones and lots of language techniques were employed. For instance, Komninos used rhyming patterns such as “diet and eat” to create movements and flows, he used exaggeration such as “I eat for the poor” to create humour and reinforce his ideas and he used shambolic rhythm patterns overall to create strong auditory
effects. The poem itself is not good poetry as in everything is
quite disordered and undisciplined but the point was to create a
self-deprecating humour and another figurative Australian voice. The poem gives
distinctively the nature of migrant Australian’s voice, which is often
represented by children who over-respect their parents. This voice is typically
from the margin of Australian culture. The poem was written in first person to more
vividly portray such real life examples of characters in childhood that we may
have seen before. In fact, Komninos was one of those
migrants who came to Australia long time ago. His family was from Greece and in his childhood, he had to comply with his father’s strict Greek values. And so he concealed his passion in Australian teenage culture during early years of his life but freed himself in the end and became a performance poet. Governments should hear more of these migrants' voices and provide assistance where needed to help them adapting the
environment. By doing this, the voices from them can be heard by us more often and can allow us to understand in deep the people around us sharing the same identity.
NOURA FROM NAROOMA BY KOMNINOS
Noura from Narooma - The Voice of a mistreated woman
Noura from Narooma is one of the longest poem from Komninos, speaking in first person of a helpless woman fighting for rights by herself. Strictly speaking, it is not a poem because it doesn’t
virtually fit the standards of how we normally define a poem, say shorter in length
and more rhyming patterns perhaps. However, it remains one of the most symbolic poems by Komninos. The poem more or less reflects the attitudes of the older society on
feminism, which is always an important part in Australian voices. He wrote the poem
in first person and in the form of retrospective story-telling and by doing
this, he lively vitalise and portray a woman character whom receives
suppression from males in society. This is a woman who was imposed a stigma of
“a mad woman”. So by doing this, he could give her a voice, a voice to trigger
people’s awakening conscience on feminism, a voice from the margins of the
society for the government to hear. Also repetitions were used quite often, for instance, “maybe if I had said something”,
in order to strengthen the comparison to our claimed free speech society and
emphasise the powerlessness of females in the older society. This woman is not
alone in the society. There is another group of people sharing the same
identity, and the government must carefully hear the voices from these people.
Help and Hear the Voices of those Refugees who are close and related to Australia
A refugee is a person who is outside their home country because they have suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion. Refugees represent a major part in the disadvatanged voices. Not only those voices within Australia should be heard, those voices outside but close and related to Australia should as well be heard. We can't hold a banner saying "Salvation" but refuse to help the people with same circumstances outside Australia. Therefore, we should treat the refugees and those disadvantaged people including those aboriginals calling for reconciliation in Australian in the same way.
Help and Hear the voices of those who call for Aboriginal reconciliation
Reconciliation, as aforementioned, is not a simple task. There has been a long way and huge amount of struggle and work towards a Great Harmony between white Australians and the native Aboriginal people. Among those who are appreciated and have contributed towards this issue, several had achieved great contributions and should be recognised in glory.
First of all, there has been a number of Prime Ministers who had apologised to the aboriginal people and pushed forward the reconciliation process.
First of all, there has been a number of Prime Ministers who had apologised to the aboriginal people and pushed forward the reconciliation process.
Kevin Rudd - Voice of apologiesKevin Rudd has been a Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, and again in 2013. He had made an apology to the aboriginal people and had sincerely reflected on the past actions and policies that had been carried out by old parliaments and governments. His speech on 13/Feb/2008 had greatly contributed towards the reconciliation process between the white Australians and the aboriginal Australians.
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Paul Keating - Voice of apologiesKevin Rudd is not the first Prime Minister that had shown sincere regret and apology to the aboriginal issue. Paul Keating was a Prime minister from 1991 to 1996. On 10/Dec/1992, in the year for the World's Indigenous People, he gave a speech on reflecting the crimes and the false past actions and policies that have been done by the past governments. He had shown the change in attitudes of the government towards the aboriginal issue and successfully opened up a brand new page of white-Australian and aboriginal people relationship.
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John Howard - Voice of limited commitmentDespite the fact that John Howard had failed to achieve reconciliation in Melbourne's Reconciliation convention in 1997, his contributions had also been a milestone in the long way towards reconciliation between white Australians and the aboriginal people. However, unlike the two aforementioned Prime Ministers, John Howard did not show (or at least pretend to be) his real intention to reconciliation as his attitudes displayed in the aboriginal reconciliation were denying that the Australian government wanted a reconciliation.
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There had also been a challenge for the aboriginal leaders, who sought to achieve a reconciliation between their people and the Australian government.
Patrick Dodson - Voice of appealing reconciliationPatrick Dodson (born 1948) is a Yawuru man from Broome, Western Australia, he is a former Chairman of the "Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation", a former Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and former Roman Catholic priest. Even though he was the chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, the Council had become inactive as there was only a limited political commitment to reconciliation from the government of John Howard. As a result, his achievements became less noticeable.
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Noel Pearson - Voice of appealing reconciliationNoel Pearson was also an Aboriginal leader. He (born 25 June 1965) was an Aboriginal Australian lawyer and the founder of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, an organisation promoting the economic and social development of Cape York. Noel Pearson also showed up in the Melbourne's Reconciliation Conevention and has the intention to reconcile aboriginal people and the white Australians. However due to the limited political commitment to reconciliation from the government of John Howard, he announced on that convention the failure of that reconciliation event.
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When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful
-- By Malala Yousafzai
Some relevant videos that display what we do for the distinct voices in Australia
These videos are very closely related to the theme of this website - unity and recognition of different voices. Among the voices, we consider that the calls for reconciliation between white Australians and the aboriginal people are quite significant. So please click the videos below and watch carefully and slowly as they do speak for us.