Windham-Campbell Prize Surprises Australian Poet Ali Cobby Eckermann

Indigenous Australian poet Ali Cobby Eckermann just won a Windham-Campbell award, which brings her $165,000 (the awards were announced last week, with another prize in Poetry going to Carolyn Forché). “It’s going to change my life completely,” she told The Guardian. More:

For Eckermann, a Yankunytjatjara/Kokatha woman, the money gives her the welcome chance to reunite with her family.

“My son and my grandsons are moving back to South Australia in the next few months, and it will just allow us some stability to grow up together under the one roof,” she said.

“I haven’t really had that option before in my life. Just the thought of maybe being able to purchase a home or rent a home, and for us to be together and have that stability is something pretty new to me.

“I’ve been so grateful for the recognition of my work so far, and could never have foreseen something of this magnitude.”

Eckermann’s literary career took off in 2009 after she submitted what became her first collection of poetry, Little Bit Long Time, to a manuscript competition run by Australian Poetry. At the time she was working in a remote arts centre, two hours outside of Alice Springs.

Eckermann has since published three collections of poetry. She is also the author of a verse novel, Ruby Moonlight, and a “poetic memoir”, Too Afraid to Cry, which examined the traumatic effects of being separated from her mother for more than 30 years.

The poet is a member of the stolen generations – forcibly taken from her mother when she was a baby. Her mother was also forcibly removed from her parents as a child, resulting in three generations of forced estrangement and grief.

“It also feels like an award that is honouring my family’s story, and the three generations of us that didn’t grow up together,” said Eckermann.

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