CONTRIBUTORS

Kirli Saunders

Kirli Saunders is a proud Gunai woman. She is the Manager of Poetic Learning and Cultural Liaison at Red Room Poetry. Kirli founded the Poetry in First Languages project. She is the author of The Incredible Freedom Machines (2018), Our Dreaming (2019) and Happy Ever After (2020). Her poetry collection, Mother, Earth Child, Lover is to be released by Magabala Books in 2019. Kirli was Runner Up in the Nakata Brophy Prize, 2017 and was Highly Commended in Black&Write! 2018. She has been published by Red Room Poetry, Cordite and Overland. In 2018, Kirli will be writer in residence at Bundanon Trust, Q Station and Fremantle Writers Centre.

They Sung Us

The Old People rain smiles for their song which brought us to be here now their glee moves in me like river mint picked and crushed on the breeze magpie gargle and waddle carefree like in-land pearls mussel flesh agleam …

Posted in 106: OPEN | Tagged

Kinship Country

~ Written with deep thanks and respect for the Elders, families and land that generously held me as I grew on Aṉangu | Pitjantjatjara | Yankunytjatjara | Alyawarre | Arrernte Country. Claustrophobic without the coast I worry that desert Country …

Posted in 104: KIN | Tagged

Winner and Commended Writers in the 2020 Queensland Poetry Festival Val Vallis Award

Helen Lucas has won the 2020 Queensland Poetry Festival Val Vallis Prize with ‘Heirloom’; Sarah Rice wins second prize with ‘My Time in Govie Housing Draws to a Close’ and Rae White wins the Highest Queensland entry for ‘The last …

Posted in GUNCOTTON | Tagged , , , ,

Vinegar and Bicarb

She dusts she mops she folds before the dawn dressed in white she stands tall shoulders down she keeps our house our home clean. She bakes she roasts she steams makes the place gleam some more lest they come with …

Posted in 89: DOMESTIC | Tagged

Grief

They were right, it does come in waves, that hold you under, as you writhe and ache, for a surface that you can’t place, that pull your mozzarella body, in every direction, that swallow your breath, again and again, and …

Posted in 87: DIFFICULT | Tagged

Disconnection

Little one, I see you mouth empty spaces, for a mother’s words to fill and stretch your ears for the stories and their voices. I watch your trembling limbs ache to shake in dance and hear your lungs as they …

Posted in 86: NO THEME VII | Tagged