AustLit

Poet and writer, Ali Cobby Eckermann was born in 1963 at Brighton, Adelaide, on Kaurna Country, and grew up on Ngadjuri country between Blyth and Brinkworth in mid-north South Australia. She travelled extensively and lived most of her adult life on Arrernte country, Jawoyn country, and Larrakia country in the Northern Territory. When she was 34, Eckermann met her birth mother Audrey, and learnt that her mob was Yankunytjatjara from north-west South Australia. Her mother was born near Ooldea, south of Maralinga on Kokatha country. Eckermann also relates herself to the Kokatha mob.

Eckermann’s first book of poetry, Little Bit Long Time, was published by the Australian Poetry Centre as part of the New Poets series in 2009. Her poetry reflects her journey to reconnect with her Yankunytjatjara/Kokatha family. In 2011, her first verse novel, His Father’s Eyes, was published; aimed at young readers, it was published as part of the Yarning Strong series by Laguna Bay Publishing and Oxford University Press.

Her second verse novel, Ruby Moonlight, won the black&write! Indigenous Editing and Writing Project, was published in 2012 by Magabala Books, won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, and was awarded Book of the Year at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2013.

Since then, she has published her autobiography Too Afraid to Cry (2013) and the collection of poetry Inside My Mother (2015). In 2016, one of her poems was translated into Bangla (the Bengali language) and published in Cordite.

In 2017, Eckermann won both the Red Room Poetry Fellowship and the Windham Campbell Prize (Poetry).