Presenter Maria Issaris talks with Vanessa Lee-AhMat and Aurora Liddle-Christie about the past and the present, of poetry and policy. And then, with passionate generosity share their fierce pride and optimism for a healed future. So, get ready to be transformed and broken open in the best possible way, by poetry and passion.

Vanessa Lee-AhMat is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman born on Thursday island, who grew up to become a highly respected epidemiologist. She has appeared on news programs The Point and The Drum, and is, she says, someone who can translate data and graphs into policy - can see the stories they tell.

But there came a point where the stories needed to be expressed in different ways - and she broke out into poetry - and break out she did! Her poems are vivid stories wrapped in the natural and the supernatural, doling out compassion and culture.

Her critiquer is Arrernte woman Aurora Liddle-Christie, an established Brisbane poet and theatre maker, who is immersed in exploring her own background which includes Jamaica, Ireland, Scotland and the Northern Territory (where her Arrernte grandfather comes from). It is the Indigenous and coloured parts of her history which form the basis of her own beautiful poetry and theatre. This is where this episode becomes transformational - it deals with the haunting aspects of the past - and shows us how delicately these two women hold the present in their hands; that under their gaze the future is infused with hope, optimism, and healing.

Original broadcast date: 30 November 2020