NANGAMAY dream MANA gather DJURALI grow: First Nations Australia LGBTQIA+ Poetry

by Alison Whittaker, Steven Lindsay Ross (Editor)

A ground-breaking collection of First Nations Australia LGBTQIA+ poets, writers and storytellers published to commemorate Sydney WorldPride being held on the unceded lands of the Gadigal, Cammeraygal, Bidigal, Dharawal and Dharug Nations.

Edited by Alison Whitaker, Gomeroi poet and academic, and Steven Lindsay Ross, Wamba Wamba writer, curator and producer.

'It is freeing and glorious to see these expressions of unbridled sexuality, vulnerability and invincible spirit in print from First Nations poets… As you read, you will be struck by the boldness of the writers’ audacious self-love, and the deep reverence and restorative love contained within the work for themselves and each other.' — Arlie Alizzi

POETS Ellen van Neerven, Natalie Harkin, Jazz Money, Gary Lee, John Mukky Burke, Steven Oliver, Yvette Henry Holt, Alison Whittaker, Steven Lindsay Ross, Luke Patterson, Lay Maloney, Tyberius Larking, Jacyn de Santis, Alita Morgan, Kirli Saunders, David Hardy, Sandy O’Sullivan, Elijah Manis, Latoya Aroha Rule, Bebe Backhouse, Colin Kinchela, Nekia Lehman, Domenic Guerrera, Ari Mills, Ellen O’Brien, Vika Mana, Samuel Barsah, Gavin Ivey, Ella Noah Bancroft, Keith Quayle, Laniyuk and Andrew Farrell.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, Indigenous

144 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 7, 2023

About the author

Alison Whittaker is a Gomeroi poet, life writer, and essayist from Gunnedah and Tamworth north-western New South Wales. She now lives in Sydney on Wangal land where she studies a combined Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws at the University of Technology Sydney. Her work has been published in Meanjin, Vertigo, Colouring the Rainbow: Blak Queer and Trans Perspectives. She is author of the award-winning poetry collections Lemons in the Chicken Wire and blakwork.

Reviews

[elbow ☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars
a nice anthology of many different perspectives on being blak and queer. i picked this up after reading some of ellen van neerven's work for my literature class. i still don't get poetry, but i hope i will understand it more with every collection that i read.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really powerful work. Cleverly edited with a good flow.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry spotlights its subject whether as the best way to use language to communicate something, or because the lived experience which feeds its expression gives it a power such that reading it makes you hear the voice of writer. As if the book in your hand and the black marks on the page over which your eyes travel are no longer that but your ears and their voice and you and they are sitting together in real life conversation. Not saying only poetry has that ability to transfix - some prose can do that too of course eg as a monologue or a speech, or my micrwave oven manual, or as a recipe for that matter. Or a (genuine) love letter. Its an intensity of focus and a depth of commitment to get something across, to share a passion or a knowledge. This work - the word 'insight' is such a cliche sadly, but seperate its two parts 'in' and 'sight' and it works. Inner sight, focus, felt sight (sight via feeling) and it works not as a cliche for this collection but as a spotlight for the voices that took me to another place in hearing the lives of those treated as outcast by those different to those who not are like themselves - where I was the outcast, looking over the fence, knowing I was outside through the deep sharing of what its like not to fit just as I did not 'fit' in their personal and everyday external life experiences, because I am not Aboriginal and I am not LGBTQIA+ so I will never really know what its like to experience my Australian-ess as they have - but could, a bit more, in reading this. My favourrite poem - on a poetic and musical level - via its tightly maintained rythmn and the clarity of the masterfully interlocking phrases which make it roar - is Stephen Oliver's Chocolate. Also its truth. Also, personally, as an Australian descendent of exiled Raasay crofters who carried their Scots culture here as a result growing up with a bagpiper father and years of watching bagpipe bands marching up and down small country town streets and massed marches around dirt football ovals - I've got a weakness for the sound of anything written or played that combines rhythm, with a loud percussive beat, and an aura of power and rage. Chocolate is the same relentless, unstoppable - spotlit.

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A variety of First Nations and LGBTIQA+ poems (as in both at once). Some individual poems I thought were better than others but all had challenging truths that were worth publishing. A collection well-worth getting if you like any sort of poetry at all and especially if you write your own.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best kind of poetry collection centred around identity, it has variety. Lots of these poems are brilliant, a lot hit home and it’s well edited and compiled. Clearly a labour of great care and some excellent work. Really worth checking out!

[Melissa Pesu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing collection of poetry that speaks about Queerness, race and the social climate. Things are felt in this collection, and should be on everyone’s shelf.

[Kate Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection about queerness, beauty and politics, and the joy and sorrows of contemporary life in the colony.