Ali Cobby Eckermann, Author, Book review, Fiction, Magabala Books, Publisher, Reading First Nations Writers, Reading Projects, verse novel

‘She is the Earth’ by Ali Cobby Eckermann

kimbofo

 Fiction – paperback; Magabala Books; 96 pages; 2023.

I am partial to a verse novel (although I have only read a handful), so I was keen to read Ali Cobby Eckermann’s She is the Earth, which was longlisted for this year’s Stella Prize.

The book is a luminous love letter to Mother Nature, including her life-sustaining ecosystems, weather patterns and landscapes.

In many ways, it reminded me of Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, but instead of looking at Earth from above, it looks at Earth from the ground up and presents it as a living, breathing organism.

I am staring
at the new day

it grows brighter
and brighter

the sky and the sea
defined by blue

as if breathing now
the water is tidal

inhaling first
exhaling next

the horizon
a definition
(page 59)

This long-form poem is comprised of meditative, two-line stanzas. It’s minimalistic yet brims with rich imagery and pulses with life.

Repeated motifs — of birth, of breath, of “sun and moon and sky”, for instance — abound, creating gentle echoes that deepen the reader’s understanding of the work as you progress through it.

And just like birth, it begins with a sense of violence…

exhausted I am
unable to breathe

I scratch for air
my mouth a cave
(page 5)

But moves towards a more gentle way of being:

from the cosmos
I learn my place
(page 80)

That “learning my place” is a central theme. References to other life forms, such as birds — brolgas, pelicans, owls, for instance — reveal how everything in the natural world has a role to play — and a path to follow.

do not diminish
the role of the mother

do not diminish
the role of the father

do not diminish
the role of the child

do not diminish
the role of the ant
(page 81)

The author, a Yankunytjatjara woman from South Australia, has long struggled to find her place in the world.

She was forcibly removed from her family as one of the Stolen Generations, which caused long-lasting trauma, powerfully evoked in her extraordinary memoir, Too Afraid to Cry (2012). In 2017 she was the first Indigenous person anywhere in the world to win the international Windham-Campbell Prize.

She is the Earth is her first book in eight years. An eloquent review of it in The Conversation sums it up better than I can:

She is the Earth is unlike any other book in Australian literature. Of the works Eckermann has written to date, it could well prove her most enduring.

I read this book for my ongoing #ReadingFirstNationsWriters project, which you can read more about here. To see all the books reviewed for this project, please visit my Reading First Nations Writers page. 

Published by kimbofo

I am a book obsessive who has been charting my reading life online since the early 2000s.

12 thoughts on “‘She is the Earth’ by Ali Cobby Eckermann”

  1. This looks quite up my street, though I think I’ve never read a verse novel before. I thought it might not be available in the UK, but I’m wrong. I’ll have to look out for it.

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    1. It took me about 30 minutes to read, and then I went back and read it again. I think it’s the kind of book that you could read multiple times and pick up multiple meanings etc.

      After I published my review I saw another online that described the book as a meditation on grief – I hadn’t clocked that at all, but I can see how you might interpret it that way. To me it was really about connection to Country and how all beings and elements are interconnected, which is a true First Nations perspective but which really chimes with how I see the world too.

      I hope you get to read it.

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    1. It was the only book I purchased off the Stella longlist this year. My blogging life has been seriously curtailed lately (too much going on at work, for instance) so I haven’t had the time to follow the prize as I would usually do so. At least this one didn’t take long to read (although I read it twice).

      I really need to read Ruby Moonlight…

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  4. This is the main one from the Stella shortlist that I want to read, but I’m not concentrating very well atm with so many boxes and packing paper filling my head instead!! Hopefully I will get to my copy next month.

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    1. Hope the packing / moving goes smoothly / finishes soon. I know how discombobulating and uncertain it can all feel. The books can wait … and then they’ll provide comfort when you have time to delve into them. This one is good for calming the mind, I found. The way the stanzas are arranged actually forces you to slow down your reading. I found it quite meditative.

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