Poems

Learning Resources

Dalgah
Jagunu
Yarabih barehbanu

make music
from the land
sing in dreams

~ Ellen van Neerven from ‘Gibam Garandalehn (Full Moon)’, Poetry In First Languages

• Bloodlines
  By Lauren Chapman Carpenter

  Njarrang Mirrirahjaang Wuriwuripa Boodjanglaali
  Waaglpa Dharan.ba Mungaroolaalijaang
  Yanggamarre Dharranjyangya Burraga
  Ngurajaangga

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• Night Vision (while we sleep)
  By Luke Patterson

  Beyond the eyelid’s flickering light, strange
  how you teeter. Marsh frogs in their homes shake
  the shallow waters of these hours. Their song
  across space naked spills through an opened window.  

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• New Beginnings
  By Lauren Chapman Carpenter

  “On a long path I wonder”
  look at the country and think Strong mother 
  and soon return to my cave
  then sit think and remember

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• The Healing Way
  By Warren Foster

  Verse 1
  Well once on Biamanga we change our boys into men
  The women wait for us to return
   

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• Silhouette
  By Laniyuk

  The trees tell me stories at night 
  Backlit by the moon 
  And our guides 
  Painting me a picture 

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• Tiny Roar
  By Omar Musa

  Silken snapdragons, swaying on stalk tower, 
  open their mouths. The tiny roars of colour
  — sherbet, red velvet, purple wine — bees waltz 
  in haloes around them, sever the thread from earth 

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• The Big Stuff
  By Brenna Quinlan

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