VCE Literature Texts: Throat

In this interview, Ellen discusses her family background

In this interview, Ellen van Neerven, discusses Comfort Food. Ellen's poetry ranges over intimacy, desire and spiritual hunger. The bunya nut - a traditional food source for the Munanjali people of south-eastern Queensland - is a recurring motif. But food is often a poetic metaphor. Elsewhere, she meditates on the paintings of Emily Kame Kngwarreye and the hysterical over-reaction to those invisible spears cast by Adam Goodes. A poem about casual racism and emotional violence in the context of an apparently loving relationship has just won Ellen van Neerven the Nakata Brophy Prize for young Indigenous writers working in poetry and short fiction.