States of Poetry - Poems

'Buffalo Milk' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One

by Ellen van Neerven •

States of Poetry Queensland - Series One

States of Poetry - Poems

'Buffalo Milk' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One

by Ellen van Neerven •

States of Poetry Queensland - Series One

Suck until you burn the room
and the heat numbs
reduced to a sound
wet
like the come and go
of the ocean
water enters
my hand in your hair
my hand
if you leave me childless
this will be yours alone
these marks you make
openings, persuasions
of the woman I will become

Ellen van Neerven

Recording

Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven (born in Meanjin (Brisbane) in 1990) is an award-winning writer and editor of Mununjali Yugambeh (South East Queensland) and Dutch heritage. Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. Ellen’s second book, a collection of poetry, Comfort Food, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize and highly commended for the 2016 Wesley Michel Wright Prize. Throat is Ellen’s second poetry collection, a May 2020 release.

(Photograph by Anna Jacobson)