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'In her memoir Too Afraid to Cry, published in 2013, Indigenous poet Ali Cobby Eckermann related how she had been tricked away from her mother as a baby, repeating the trauma her mother had suffered when she was taken from her grandmother many years before. Eckermann in turn had to give her own child up for adoption. In her new poetry collection, Inside my Mother, she explores the distance between the generations created by such experiences, felt as an interminable void in its darkest aspects, marked by sadness, withdrawal, yearning and mistrust, but in other ways a magical place ‘beyond the imagination’, lit by dreams and visions of startling intensity, populated by symbolic presences and scenes of ritual and commemoration, chief amongst them the separation and reunion of mother and child. Though the emotions are strong, they are expressed simply and with a sense of significance in nature which reminds one of the poetry of Oodgeroo Noonuccal, whose successor Eckermann is.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
-
Dedication:
This book is dedicated to my mothers
Mum Audrey Ngingali, Aunty Mabel,
Aunty Lorna, Aunty Lola, Aunty Nura,
who in their passing strengthened me
to know who I am
and to
Mum Frieda and Mum Jennifer
who still remain
my dearest friends
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
For All We Do in the Dark : A Story for My Mother
2021
single work
prose
— Appears in: Griffith Review , no. 74 2021; -
Reading and Viewing : [Indigenous Texts for Year 7 - 10]
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: English in Australia , vol. 54 no. 1 2019; (p. 76-82) -
Writing on Thresholds : Ali Cobby Eckermann’s Inside My Mother
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Coolabah , no. 24/25 2018; (p. 337-351)'This paper considers the aesthetic and material concepts of the threshold as they figure in contemporary Australian poetry, and examines how the threshold can be a productive and generative space in Australian poetics. The metaphor of the threshold as a point of entry or beginning, place of transition, place of exit, rite of passage, or liminal space, speaks to the writer’s imagination as a location of potent creative power. It is here, on the threshold, that a writer gestates ideas, follows the call of the initial creative impulse, and brings her words forth to be shaped. During this (w)rite of passage something new is made. For a writer, being on the threshold is at once a place where she can thresh out ideas (receptive), and the site of creative acts (generative).' (Publication abstract)
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Lucy Dougan's The Guardians and Ali Cobby Eckermann's Inside My Mother
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 60 no. 2 2015; (p. 153-155)
— Review of The Guardians 2015 selected work poetry ; Inside My Mother 2015 selected work poetry -
Review Short : Ali Cobby Eckermann’s Inside My Mother
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , October no. 51.1 2015;
— Review of Inside My Mother 2015 selected work poetry
-
On Family Matters
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 22-23 August 2015; (p. 30) The Saturday Age , 22-23 August 2015; (p. 30)
— Review of Eating My Grandmother : A Grief Cycle 2015 selected work poetry ; Inside My Mother 2015 selected work poetry -
Australian Poetry
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 19-20 September 2015; (p. 18)
— Review of Inside My Mother 2015 selected work poetry ; Walking with Elephants 2015 selected work poetry ; Jam Sticky Vision 2015 selected work poetry -
R. D. Wood Reviews Inside My Mother by Ali Cobby Eckermann
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain [Online] , September 2015;
— Review of Inside My Mother 2015 selected work poetry -
Review Short : Ali Cobby Eckermann’s Inside My Mother
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , October no. 51.1 2015;
— Review of Inside My Mother 2015 selected work poetry -
Lucy Dougan's The Guardians and Ali Cobby Eckermann's Inside My Mother
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 60 no. 2 2015; (p. 153-155)
— Review of The Guardians 2015 selected work poetry ; Inside My Mother 2015 selected work poetry -
Writing on Thresholds : Ali Cobby Eckermann’s Inside My Mother
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Coolabah , no. 24/25 2018; (p. 337-351)'This paper considers the aesthetic and material concepts of the threshold as they figure in contemporary Australian poetry, and examines how the threshold can be a productive and generative space in Australian poetics. The metaphor of the threshold as a point of entry or beginning, place of transition, place of exit, rite of passage, or liminal space, speaks to the writer’s imagination as a location of potent creative power. It is here, on the threshold, that a writer gestates ideas, follows the call of the initial creative impulse, and brings her words forth to be shaped. During this (w)rite of passage something new is made. For a writer, being on the threshold is at once a place where she can thresh out ideas (receptive), and the site of creative acts (generative).' (Publication abstract)
-
Reading and Viewing : [Indigenous Texts for Year 7 - 10]
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: English in Australia , vol. 54 no. 1 2019; (p. 76-82) -
For All We Do in the Dark : A Story for My Mother
2021
single work
prose
— Appears in: Griffith Review , no. 74 2021;