the body country

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PRIZE FOR POETRY, 2024 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS

'I keep looking at the stars

to see the universe, but the joke is

I am the universe.'

the body country is an evocative exploration of a world that too often marginalises and the power of a land that can offer connection. A meditation of wandering and wondering on Country, inviting the reader to understand the complexities and changing forms of self and love.

A Wergaia and Wemba Wemba woman, Susie Anderson captures profound meaning in moments often lost in the busyness of a day, encouraging us all to stop and allow ourselves the space to notice. To notice the shape of a mouth as it says goodbye; the colour of the sky as you fall in love; the way a steering wheel is turned carelessly after many wines; the crunch of dry ground after drought; the smell of fire on the wind; the movement of ants before rain; the power a word, a dress, a piece of art can give to run towards something new.

These are poems that take us across rural and urban settings; from the personal to the universal, from looking inward to mapping the land and always bringing us back to the Country that connects us all.

'Anderson pays attention to the moments that slip through the cracks and hands them straight to you in a way that can momentarily stun' Harper's Bazaar

'The Body Country is an evocative exploration of a world that too often marginalises and the power of a land that can offer connection. Susie captures profound meaning in moments often lost in the busyness of a day, encouraging us all to stop and allow ourselves the space to notice' Wimmera Mail Times

'Powerful' Who Magazine

Susie Anderson writes from the nexus of compassion and resistance. Her poetry and nonfiction are widely published online and in print, such as in Archer Magazine, Artist Profile, Artlink, un Magazine, Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia and in many poetry anthologies. In 2018, she was runner-up in the Overland Poetry Prize and awarded the Emerging Writers Fellowship at State Library Victoria; in 2019, she was awarded a Writers Victoria Neilma Sidney grant and was a recipient of the Overland Writers Residency. In 2020, she edited the online journal, Tell Me Like You Mean It Volume 4, for Australian Poetry journal and Cordite Poetry Review.

Her professional practice is as a digital producer in the arts and creative industries ranging from Sydney, London and Melbourne. Leveraging her position within institutions, she attempts to bring about change by uncovering and amplifying stories from her own and other communities. Descended from the Wergaia and Wemba Wemba peoples of Western Victoria, she currently lives on Boon Wurrung land in Melbourne.

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