Young Mununjali Yugambeh author Ellen van Neerven pulled off a hat-trick at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards for their second poetry collection, Throat, at an online ceremony on Monday evening.
Awarding van Neerven's collection the Book of the Year (worth $10,000), the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000) and the Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000), the judges praised the work's "beauty, honesty and power" and said it "confirms their place as one of the sharpest and most compelling poets of their generation".
Accepting their awards from Turrbal and Yuggera lands near Meanjin (Brisbane), van Neerven expressed gratitude and surprise.
Speaking to the ABC, van Neerven also acknowledged the particular windfall of prize money.
"I'm really grateful for it. Because you know, if I just relied on book sales, I would not have any money."
The $60,000 will afford them "time and space" for bigger projects.
"You know, on paper, I'm 30 and I've written three books and I've also done a lot of other kinds of books, anthologies and that sort of thing. It seems like I'd probably be like 'go go go' — but actually I've tried not to rush things," van Neerven told the ABC.
"That's been how I've got to a point where I am happy with a book — like with this book [Throat]. I probably worked on it for about four or five years. But that is a luxury — to be able to not rush."
Van Neerven is the third Indigenous poet to win the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry since it was first awarded in 1980, following Samuel Wagan Watson (2005) and Ali Cobby Eckermann (2013).
Meanwhile, this year's Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000) went to Kate Grenville, for A Room Made of Leaves — a fictionalised account of the life of Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of prominent British-Australian colonist and wool merchant John Macarthur.
Scroll down for full list of awards
As with last year's event, which was held just a month after the State Library closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the winners of this year's awards were announced via a pre-recorded digital ceremony streamed on the State Library of NSW website.
State librarian John Vallance, hosting the ceremony, said: "I really hope this is the last time we have to do it like this. In 2022 I'm very much looking forward to welcoming you all in person back to the State Library."
'A sense of community'
Throat is divided into five loosely thematic chapters, but across the volume van Neerven is also sketching their own narrative arc — over poems with titles like The Only Black Queer in the World, Chermy (after Westfield Chermside shopping centre), Dysphoria and unsent txt msgs.
There's the sense of multiple awakenings at work — political, sexual, cultural, literary — and an active grappling with racism, capitalism, memory, identity, grief and trauma.
There's a one-page "Treaty of Shared Power between Throat's Reader and Author" — with a place to sign, and an accompanying note. "What is our relationship with each other? What are our expectations of each other?" the author wonders.
The collection is buoyed by this kind of playful engagement with the reader; by the evocation of family and community; and by humour and hard-won wisdom.
Van Neerven said one of the most rewarding experiences since publishing the book in 2020 had been receiving feedback from readers — especially younger, First Nations and queer readers.
The precarity of poetry
Van Neerven is not joking when they say "it makes no sense financially to be a poet".
Prizes are "a kind of a lottery", poetry print runs are typically smaller than most fiction — and in between, there's a lot of side hustle.
"I have to supplement my income through a number of different ways," they said.
Poetry is close to their heart, however.
"Poetry has always made sense to me, because it's so big in community," they told ABC.
Like many children, they struggled to enjoy the Western 'canon' as taught in school — and consequently, had to overcome a certain degree of imposter syndrome.
"For a long time, I was like, 'I don't know how to write poetry because I don't know how to write a sonnet or I don't rhyme' — or, you know, all these sort of things about the poetry that you read at school."
Reading extensively — particularly poetry by First Nations, people of colour, women and trans and non-binary writers — gave them confidence.
"I've read so much poetry over the last few years, and that's given me permission to be a poet myself."
Heroes, mentors and peers
Mentors and "heroes" have also been crucial to van Neerven's development.
Asked what kept them pushing through the obstacles to pursue poetry, they said: "I guess I really enjoy reading it — and there's lots of poets I really admire. And, you know, you go and you do a reading with them, and you get so inspired, you're like, 'I just want to keep doing this.'"
Heroes include the late Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Lisa Bellear, and contemporary poets Ali Cobby Eckermann and Samuel Wagan Watson (both former winners of both the Kenneth Slessor and Book of the Year awards).
Van Neerven also thanked two mentors in their acceptance speech: Sue Abbey, former editor at the University of Queensland Press (which publishes van Neerven) and founder of the Indigenous writing and editing project black&write; and Wiradjuri writer and poet Jeanine Leane.
Van Neerven is not an outlier, either; they are among a cohort of young First Nations poets, primarily women, who appear to be flourishing — if not financially, then creatively and in terms of a readership.
These include Alison Whittaker, Evelyn Araluen and Kirli Saunders — all of whom feature in this week's Sydney Writers Festival line-up, alongside van Neerven.
Van Neerven situates this within a longer-term movement.
"The last 10 or 15 years, there's been a big push in the literary industry to have more First Nations people working behind the scenes in producing the work — whether in the capacity of being editors, publishers, reviewers, people who are organising things — and that contributes to the way the work is seen and how it's being put out there."
At the same time, the audience for poetry seems to have grown — or at least, grown younger — as evidenced by the viral popularity of figures like Canadian Rupi Kaur and American Amanda Gorman.
"It can go viral so quickly, which is really amazing."
Whether that can translate into financial stability for poets remains to be seen.
Full list of winners
Book of the Year ($10,000)
Throat by Ellen van Neerven (University of Queensland Press)
Christina Stead Prize for Fiction ($40,000)
A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville (Text Publishing)
UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing ($5,000)
Cherry Beach by Laura McPhee-Browne (Text Publishing)
Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction ($40,000)
The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire by Kate Fullagar (Yale University Press)
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry ($30,000)
Throat by Ellen van Neerven (UQP)
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature ($30,000)
The Grandest Bookshop in the World by Amelia Mellor (Affirm Press)
Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature ($30,000)
The End of the World is Bigger than Love by Davina Bell (Text Publishing)
Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting ($30,000)
Milk by Dylan Van Den Berg (The Street Theatre)
Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000)
FREEMAN by Laurence Billiet (General Strike & Matchbox Pictures)
Multicultural NSW Award ($20,000)
Throat by Ellen van Neerven (UQP)
NSW Translation Prize ($30,000) — biennial award — joint winners
Autumn Manuscripts by Tasos Leivaditis, translated by N. N. Trakakis (Smokestack Books)
Imminence by Mariana Dimópulos, translated by Alice Whitmore (Giramondo Publishing)
Special Award ($10,000)
Melina Marchetta
People's Choice Award
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams (Affirm Press)
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTA0LTI3L2VsbGVuLXZhbi1uZWVydmVuLWJvb2stb2YtdGhlLXllYXItbnN3LXByZW1pZXJzLWxpdGVyYXJ5LWF3YXJkcy8xMDAwOTY3OTbSAShodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTAwMDk2Nzk2?oc=5
2021-04-26 22:36:12Z
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