not in Aus, mate

bad things don’t happen here

our beaches are open

they are not places where bloodied mattresses burn

Ellen van Neerven writes fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction. An award-winning Mununjali Yugambeh writer and editor, their highly celebrated books include the experimental fiction collection, Heat and Light, and a book of poems, Comfort Food. This month, they released their second poetry collection, Throat, which explores love, language and land, and interrogates the colonial impulse.

Maxine Beneba Clarke, left, and Ellen van Neerven

Maxine Beneba Clarke is also a critically acclaimed writer and poet, whose work – including her award-winning 2016 poetry collection, Carrying the World – is known for its intensity and inventiveness, and for speaking truth to power.

Both writers bring humour and heart to critical questions of who we are, where we come from and the burden of Australia’s unreconciled history.

Speaking from their respective homes during the COVID-19 restrictions of May 2020, these two poetic powerhouses discuss their shared passion for the form, and consider ways in which poetry can help us process what’s happening in the world today. Introduced with a Welcome to Country from Parbin-Ata Carolyn Briggs.

Presented in partnership with Australian Poetry with the support of the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

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