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THREE POEMS
(KURU WARU) BUSHFIRES EYES There are bushfires burning in my eyes I am burning down the modern world I am burning your invasion of me I am burning the image of you You are all burning on my pyre
ALI COBBY ECKERMANN Ali Cobby Eckermann’s first collection little bit long time was written in the desert and launched her literary career in 2009. In 2013 Ali toured Ireland as Australian Poetry Ambassador and won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and Book Of The Year (NSW) for Ruby Moonlight, a massacre verse novel. In 2014 Ali was the inaugural recipient of the Tungkunungka Pintyanthi Fellowship at Adelaide Writers Week, and the first Aboriginal Australian writer to attend the International Writing Program at University of Iowa. In 2017 Ali received a Windham Campbell Award for Poetry from Yale University USA and was awarded a Literature Fellowship by the Australian Council for the Arts in 2018. Ali was granted a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in Italy in 2019 and is currently an Adjunct Professor at RMIT Melbourne.
I am burning your prejudice of me I am burning your paternalism I am burning your policies I am burning your excuses I am burning your greed I am burning your lack of understanding I am burning your refusal to acknowledge that I am burning your insults and beratings I am burning your reaction to this poem There are bushfires burning in my eyes My Mother the land is crying My Mother is crying with beauty My Mother is crying with sadness I am crying for all my mothers We are crying for our land Our tears are embers unable to quell There has been no lull in you There will be no lull in me I am burning down the modern world There are bushfires burning in my eyes
Copyright is retained by the author.
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER | VOLUME 29: ISSUE 3 – OCTOBER 2020
