Says Wagan Watson of his short story collection: ‘One of the few commodities that Indigenous people cannot have seized from them is their ghosts. ‘A combination of poetry and fragments of lyric essays, Gawimarra mounts a substantial archival interrogation and a searing critique of national symbols and icons as it seeks to disrupt the calcified historical discourse and settler hubris of Australia,’ says Leane.

UQP holds world rights for both titles, both publishing in 2023.

Tuffield points to Ellen van Neerven’s Throat, which has been put on the Queensland and Victorian high school English curriculums, as well as the Alison Whittaker-edited Fire Front: First Nations poetry and power today as two collections that have sold well.įorthcoming titles by First Nations poets include Gawimarra: Gathering, the third poetry collection by Wiradjuri writer, critic and poet Jeanine Leane, and debut short story collection New and Used Ghosts by established poet Samuel Wagan Watson. Indeed, for UQP, First Nations poetry is its main growth area in poetry sales. ‘We’ve seen festivals programming poets in more mainstream ways, for opening nights and in general panels, and not sequestering the poets to a single “poetry” session, and that has helped certain poets and their books gain attention,’ says UQP publisher Aviva Tuffield, referring both to the success of Dropbear, as well as Wiradjuri poet Jazz Money’s debut collection how to make a basket. With sales of about 15,000 copies to date (a huge number for this market), Goorie-Koori poet Evelyn Araluen’s poetry collection Dropbear (UQP) has defied the stereotype of poetry as a traditionally niche and low-selling genre in Australia.Īs well as being the first poetry collection to win the Stella Prize for women and nonbinary writers, after the award’s eligibility criteria changed for 2022 to allow poetry, Araluen’s debut collection went on to win small publishers’ adult book of the year at the 2022 Australian Book Industry Awards, and was the number-one bestselling book at both Sydney Writers’ Festival and Brisbane Writers Festival -no small feat for a literary title nestled firmly in the traditionally niche genre of poetry. Nations poetry has been a standout success in 2022-so let’s take a look at what other titles are forthcoming from across the diverse spectrum of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writing.

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