Throat - Ellen van Neerven: Home

I am not aware of my power

you watch me build my weapon

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 muscles and shines a light on Australia’s unreconciled past and precarious present with humour and heart. Unsparing in its interrogation of colonial impulse, this book is fiercely loyal to voicing our truth and telling the stories that make us who we are.

Photograph: Anna Jacobson

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh (South East Queensland) 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. They have written two poetry collections: Comfort Food, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize; and Throat, which was shortlisted in 2021 for the Queensland Literary Awards and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, and won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Ellen also won the Queensland Literary Awards – Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award and the University of Melbourne’s Australian Centre Literary Awards – Peter Blazey Fellowship in 2019.

Source: UQP

Ellen van Neerven (they/them) is an award-winning author, editor and educator of Mununjali (Yugambeh language group) and Dutch heritage. This is Ellen’s story.

I was born in Brisbane and have strong connections to my First Nations and Dutch backgrounds.

We are First Nations people from Queensland. Our cultural ties are to South East Queensland and we proudly identify as Mununjali people who speak Yugambeh.

My dad’s family are Dutch, from a small town in The Netherlands called Mierlo. After meeting in The Netherlands, my dad migrated to Australia when my mum returned.

For me, my mentors are mostly First Nations women, who inspire and encourage with their strong sense of self, as motivators.

I see the role of mentoring as an opportunity to pay it forward and I’ve mentored many writers of all ages, sharing their journey, their inspiration and their persistence.

So, I do feel like I have a bit of a skill in listening to people’s stories and helping them gain confidence in their ability. My advice is often ‘Take a breath. Doing something amazing is not meant to be easy’.

When it comes to multiculturalism, I like to point out Australia’s long-standing cultural diversity.

What people don’t talk about is that Australia has always been multicultural, because each First Nations group has its own culture.

Linguistically, driving through Queensland it’s as diverse as driving through Europe.

So, we have many different cultures here and we’ve got along, and worked together, for 1,000s of years – I think that’s pretty special.

multicultural.nsw.gov.au

Sydney Review of Books

‘Throat is a brave and radical work. A work that deserves an equally radical and considered reading position. One that requires a suspension of western realism, history, temporality, literary conventions and values, binaries and expectations. Its potency leaves an aftertaste to savour as it lingers long.’

Yvette Holt

‘A national poetic deliverance of what it means to be Aboriginal, proud and resilient - yesterday, today and tomorrow.’

Omar Sakr

‘In this brilliant, witty collection, van Neerven puts a finger to the world's jagged pulse and measures out the beat across time and country, love and loss.’

Nakkiah Lui

‘Van Neerven's ability to challenge and expand politics is thrilling, their flair for language exhilaratingly intimate.’

Hannah Kent

‘This exceptional collection of poetry burned into me: it is necessary reading. Van Neerven's work speaks to deep reflection - on language, on Blak queer identity, on pain, on resilience - and is, in and of itself, profoundly, powerfully beautiful.’

NSW Premier's Literary Awards

‘The judging panel was unanimous in its decision to award the prize to Throat. This year’s shortlist is particularly extraordinary, and contains some of the best works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry in recent times, so for Throat to rise to the top is an even greater acknowledgement of how great a work it is. We were overwhelmed with the work’s beauty, honesty and power, and this prize should send a clear message about what the future of literature should look like in this country.’

Association for the Study of Australian Literature

‘Van Neerven’s innovation lies in both form and content, extending the available language for Australia’s colonial past and present, calling out the complex interstices between coloniality, homophobia, sexism and transphobia and demanding immediate action from a flabby, forgetful and racist nation... Van Neerven’s tone is often intimate, cherishing community, Country, love for self and others. The poems are witty, a homage to the power of Indigenous artists and writers, and to the quotidian power in family and familiarity. The judges were gripped by this powerful assertion of resistance and empowerment by a poet at the top of their game.’

Source: UQP