She Is the Earth is the luminous new verse novel from celebrated poet Ali Cobby Eckermann. It charts a journey through grief and celebrates the healing power of Country. We follow Eckermann’s soft footfalls in the open (but far from empty) spaces between earth and sky; from sandstone to wetlands, from plains to mountain ranges.
Eckermann’s writing soars in this meditative and transformative piece. Soaked in lightness and dark, history and dreaming, her words will move you, shake you, devastate you and uplift you. This book is full of unexpected beauty in slow, contemplative moments. Read it to see the ‘She’ in and around all of us.
Ali Cobby Eckermann is a Yankunytjatjara poet and artist from South Australia whose work has been published and celebrated around the world. Her poetry collections include little bit long time and the award-winning collection Inside My Mother. Her verse novels are His Father’s Eyes and Ruby Moonlight, which won the inaugural black&write! Indigenous fellowship, the Kenneth Slessor Prize, a Deadly Award and was named the NSW Premier’s Literary Award Book of the Year. In 2013 Ali toured Ireland as Australia’s Poetry Ambassador, and in 2017 she received the Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University.
She describes herself as a dreamer, a gardener, with deep respect for her journey thus far.
Published May 1, 2023