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'Throat is the explosive second poetry collection from award-winning Mununjali Yugambeh writer Ellen van Neerven. Exploring love, language and land, van Neerven flexes their distinctive muscles and shines alight on Australia’s unreconciled past and precarious present with humour and heart. Van Neerven is unsparing in the interrogation of colonial impulse, and fiercely loyal to telling the stories that make us who we are.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Daniel Sleiman Reviews Throat by Ellen Van Neerven
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;
— Review of Throat 2020 selected work poetry'In reading poetry, we look for those rare moments where a creative sequence of words thoroughly subjects our thinking, our feeling and our knowledge to a momentary realisation of reinterpreted or interrupted truth. There are many of those moments one finds while reading Ellen Van Neerven’s poetry collection Throat (2020).' (Introduction)
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What I’m Reading
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2020; -
What I’m Reading
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2020; -
In Times Like These, What Would Oodgeroo Do? On the Influence Of Aboriginal Poet, Activist And Educator Oodgeroo Noonuccal
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: The Monthly , December no. 173 2020; (p. 22-28) 'Oodgeroo Noonuccal is widely acknowledged as a distinguished poet of determination and brilliance. She was also one of the heroes of the Aboriginal struggle for justice in the 1960s, known for her work as an activist, educator and public speaker. Her poetry educated Australians – and people throughout the world – on the plight of Aboriginal people. And she triumphantly let the world know through her poetry that the Australian style was not hers. In “Not My Style”, she yearned for a new time in this country: “I want to do / The things I have not done. / Not just taste the nectar of Gods / But drown in it too.”' (Introduction) -
Books of the : Year A Look Back at Some of the Year's Finest Works
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 427 2020;
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Ellen Van Neerven, Throat
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 30 May - 5 June 2020;
— Review of Throat 2020 selected work poetry'It seems hard to believe that Ellen van Neerven’s debut poetry book, Comfort Food, was only published in 2016, given the remarkable evolution we see in Throat, the second collection from the young Mununjali Yugambeh poet. While the titles of both poetry collections similarly draw attention to the mouth, that organ traditionally associated with poets, they do so in ways that highlight the differences between the books. Comfort Food was an offering of short lyrical poems characterised by the kind of openness and generosity associated with acts of sharing meals. Throat, however, is a far edgier book, speaking of vulnerability but also strength, pain and anger.' (Introduction)
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On The Power To Be Still
2020
single work
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , August 2020;
— Review of Throat 2020 selected work poetry'I chose to read this work through the poet’s chosen vessel, the throat. Finishing it left me with my heart right there – beating at the back of my throat; in awe of what I had just read, and in suspenseful anticipation of what is to come.' (Introduction)
-
Daniel Sleiman Reviews Throat by Ellen Van Neerven
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;
— Review of Throat 2020 selected work poetry'In reading poetry, we look for those rare moments where a creative sequence of words thoroughly subjects our thinking, our feeling and our knowledge to a momentary realisation of reinterpreted or interrupted truth. There are many of those moments one finds while reading Ellen Van Neerven’s poetry collection Throat (2020).' (Introduction)
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‘I Was the Only Blak Queer in the World’ : on Ellen Van Neerven’s Throat
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , June 2020;'In 2017, just over a year after the publication of Ellen van Neerven’s debut collection of poetry, Comfort Food, the poet Omar Sakr called van Neerven ‘[T]he brightest star in my generation of authors’. Gomeroi poet and multitasker Alison Whittaker marvelled, ‘I have no idea what contemporary Australian literature would look like without Ellen.’'
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y
At Home with Ellen Van Neerven
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
Melbourne
:
Bad Producer Productions
,
2020
19698807
2020
single work
interview
podcast
'Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning poet and writer of Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction.
'Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. Ellen’s second book, a collection of poetry, Comfort Food, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize and highly commended for the 2016 Wesley Michel Wright Prize. Throat is Ellen’s third word and her second poetry collection.' (Production introduction)
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Walking Wurundjeri Country
2020
single work
prose
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 79 no. 3 2020; -
Books of the : Year A Look Back at Some of the Year's Finest Works
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 427 2020; -
In Times Like These, What Would Oodgeroo Do? On the Influence Of Aboriginal Poet, Activist And Educator Oodgeroo Noonuccal
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: The Monthly , December no. 173 2020; (p. 22-28) 'Oodgeroo Noonuccal is widely acknowledged as a distinguished poet of determination and brilliance. She was also one of the heroes of the Aboriginal struggle for justice in the 1960s, known for her work as an activist, educator and public speaker. Her poetry educated Australians – and people throughout the world – on the plight of Aboriginal people. And she triumphantly let the world know through her poetry that the Australian style was not hers. In “Not My Style”, she yearned for a new time in this country: “I want to do / The things I have not done. / Not just taste the nectar of Gods / But drown in it too.”' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2021 shortlisted ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
- 2021 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Book of the Year
- 2021 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Multicultural NSW
- 2021 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
- 2021 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — The C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry