The first-ever Killarney Story Weekend went ahead over the weekend, with locals going to extraordinary measures to come together in a time when outside influences are dividing them.
Louise Brosnan stated that “at the moment the Killarney community is cut in two by the border lockdown”.
Locals on the New South Wales side of the border can only cross for essential reasons, even though as Louise says their homes are “just a few kilometres away from Killarney but an hour’s drive from the next NSW town”.
“They don’t know from day to day what they will experience at the crossing; if they accidentally say the wrong thing, or have the wrong papers, they may not be allowed to cross at all.
“What was a workable ‘Border Bubble’ is now very, very difficult to work out,” she said.
Louise says residents don’t know what to expect over the next few months.
“Right now they are feeling very forgotten.”
Poetry is not an essential purpose, so locals from the NSW side of the border could not attend the event.
Not ones to let a pesky border stop them, the group decided to take the poetry to the border for a pop-up slam poetry performance.
With Killarney Story Weekend poet, Anisa Nandaula in tow, locals did their best to come together even with the line drawn in between them.
