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Kindred
Kirli Saunders debut poetry collection is a pleasure to lose yourself in. Kirli has a keen eye for observation, humour and big themes that surround Love/Connection/Loss in an engaging style, complemented by evocative and poignant imagery. It talks to identity, culture, community and the role of Earth as healer. Kindred has the ability to grab hold of the personal in the universal and reflect this back to the reader.
96 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2019
4 people are currently reading
336 people want to read
About the author
Kirli Saunders
10 books42 followersKirli Saunders is a proud Gunai Woman and award-winning writer, artist, and consultant. An experienced speaker and facilitator advocating for the environment, gender, racial equality and LGBTIQA+ rights, Kirli was the NSW Aboriginal Woman of the Year (2020). In 2022, She received at OAM for her contribution to the arts and literature, her books include The Incredible Freedom Machines (Scholastic, 2018), Kindred (Magabala, 2019), Bindi (Magabala, 2020), Our Dreaming (Scholastic, 2022) and Returning (Magabala, 2023).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
June 6, 2019
I don't know why I like Saunders' poetry so much. It is deceptively simple, rather than artful or clever, but feels so true, that I want to read the phrases again and again until they are in me. There is an intimacy of connection in simpatica poetry that is almost certainly illusory but feels, at any rate, to forge a connection somewhere beyond rationality. Like lightning fast glimpses from someone else's eyes, without anything to make sense of them, but just … a moment. That's how I feel about Saunders' poems. With some poems, there's no connection, of course, but sometimes it is as if I seefeelsmell something I haven't before.
I first noticed her in Overland, worth the print subscription just for that:
The volume - and the cover is gorgeous, just had to be said - is broken into three parts, journeying from trauma, through nurture, to recovery/adulthood/love. While the quotes are from the more joy-based poems, many deal with tougher topics, and Saunders is strong in the poignancy. Strength is a constant presence, and two concepts used on the back by Alison Whittaker, tenderness and ferocity, flow through the book, tying the cycles of pain, comfort, love and recovery together.
You can check out a few of Saunders' poems at the Red Room, including one of my favourites from the book, Bower Boy.
I first noticed her in Overland, worth the print subscription just for that:
(buy the book for the rest!)
You and I
were the lychees
sucked from blistered shells,
and navel to cheek
park sleeps,
the skating of fingers
over cracked palms
and the tempura kisses
awaiting trains.
The volume - and the cover is gorgeous, just had to be said - is broken into three parts, journeying from trauma, through nurture, to recovery/adulthood/love. While the quotes are from the more joy-based poems, many deal with tougher topics, and Saunders is strong in the poignancy. Strength is a constant presence, and two concepts used on the back by Alison Whittaker, tenderness and ferocity, flow through the book, tying the cycles of pain, comfort, love and recovery together.
You can check out a few of Saunders' poems at the Red Room, including one of my favourites from the book, Bower Boy.
I've left blue letters
on the windowsill
for you
since I were a child.
Inked notes
on bottle caps
and pegs
and ribbons,
to remind you
that we were lovers once,
a lifetime ago.
My offerings for your
wild cobalt nest
to have you know that
Bower boy,
I love you still.
December 17, 2021
4.5 stars
December 21, 2020
Part of the shameful role of colonial behaviour in Australia since 1788, is the conscious and unconscious effort to create a White Australia that only spoke English. This required new immigrants to forget their native language and assimilate by only speaking English, but more significantly, it completely denied Aboriginal Australians the dignity or right to speak their own languages.
I grew up in an Australia that was almost empty of Aboriginal words.
Many rural towns and suburbs retained names derived from an Indigenous term to describe the local area and some of our plants and animals have a similar history. As a teenager, in particular, an Indigenous word would enter our language colloquially, but there was no systemic teaching, understanding or use of local languages.
Until recently.
Slowly, slowly, Indigenous languages are being revived, encouraged and celebrated. Dictionaries are being created, recordings are being made and Indigenous writers and artists are using their own words more often in their work.
Two of the poems in Saunders' collection, Kindred, caught my eye for this reason.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2020/...
I grew up in an Australia that was almost empty of Aboriginal words.
Many rural towns and suburbs retained names derived from an Indigenous term to describe the local area and some of our plants and animals have a similar history. As a teenager, in particular, an Indigenous word would enter our language colloquially, but there was no systemic teaching, understanding or use of local languages.
Until recently.
Slowly, slowly, Indigenous languages are being revived, encouraged and celebrated. Dictionaries are being created, recordings are being made and Indigenous writers and artists are using their own words more often in their work.
Two of the poems in Saunders' collection, Kindred, caught my eye for this reason.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2020/...
September 7, 2020
Gorgeous poetry.
September 5, 2024
Matriarch and Nostalgia both stand outs for me 🙏🏼
July 13, 2020
"I see you mouth empty spaces
for a mother's words to fill
and stretch ears
for the stories and their voices" (4).
I've had my eye on 'Kindred' for a while. The simple and beautiful cover makes you feel soft and connected immediately and in my opinion encompasses the entire collection of poetry.
Kirli Saunders divides her collection into three parts 'Mother', 'Earthchild' and 'Lover.' The wispy and wonderful lines melt into you as you read and you feel as though you are resting the collection in an elbow's nook. You want to keep it safe.
"I sit with the Earth's
umbilical cord,
wrap myself
and reconnect,
I draw my first breath" (23).
I found myself most absorbed by 'Earthchild' as Kirli uses gentle language to guide you through experiences of isolation, hopeful sadness and Dreaming. I felt connected reading it.
Favourites include:
New Chapter (14)
The Artist (21)
Sacred Spaces II (23)
Dharawal Country (26)
Sleeping Bags and Swags (45)
A Dance of Hands (50).
for a mother's words to fill
and stretch ears
for the stories and their voices" (4).
I've had my eye on 'Kindred' for a while. The simple and beautiful cover makes you feel soft and connected immediately and in my opinion encompasses the entire collection of poetry.
Kirli Saunders divides her collection into three parts 'Mother', 'Earthchild' and 'Lover.' The wispy and wonderful lines melt into you as you read and you feel as though you are resting the collection in an elbow's nook. You want to keep it safe.
"I sit with the Earth's
umbilical cord,
wrap myself
and reconnect,
I draw my first breath" (23).
I found myself most absorbed by 'Earthchild' as Kirli uses gentle language to guide you through experiences of isolation, hopeful sadness and Dreaming. I felt connected reading it.
Favourites include:
New Chapter (14)
The Artist (21)
Sacred Spaces II (23)
Dharawal Country (26)
Sleeping Bags and Swags (45)
A Dance of Hands (50).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2019
I’m no expert in poetry, but this collection hit me right in the heart - which is exactly what I think poetry should do.
Read
March 21, 2023review to come!
July 1, 2019
*** This review was first published in National Indigenous Times on May 27, 2019
https://nit.com.au/kirli-saunders-bar...
Kirli Saunders bares us to bright moments in debut poetry collection
‘Poems made him conscious of his breathing. A poem bared the moment to things he was not normally prepared to notice.’
– Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis
Kirli Saunders’ debut collection Kindred offers a sequence of poems that shift seamlessly between the concrete and country, the tangible and the spiritual—and, like the best poems, they bare us to moments we’re often too busy, too distracted to notice.
The Wollongong-based poet anchors us with bright details: Mentos wrappers under couch cushions, a yellow bike kneading Glebe pathways, a walk home that smells of childhood piano lessons dipped in jasmine.
But Ms Saunders is not afraid to step beyond the known, to grasp for and allude to a deep and old knowledge that’s just beyond reach.
In ‘Disconnection’, a poem addressed to an unnamed little one, the proud Gunai woman muses on what it’s like to grow up when your roots have been wrenched from the earth. Ms Saunders writes,
I watch your
trembling limbs
ache to shake
in dance
and hear your lungs
as they gasp with songs unknown.
The poem falls into the first part of the book titled ‘Mother,’ which Ms Saunders said is about connection with culture.
“This first section of the book is about my mother being removed from country, and me trying to learn language, to learn about culture, and to learn how I fit in that landscape,” Ms Saunders said.
Not all the landscapes in Kindred are benevolent. The poem ‘Dharawal Country’ sends shivers through the skin, and Ms Saunders writes with power about the way country remembers.
She observes ants ‘like homicide crime scene cleaners’, bloody sap leaking secrets and ‘pine in place of eucalypt’.
“It’s important for poetry to tell the truth. I was struck by this beautiful landscape. But a massacre had occurred so close to where I was writing. So, I used the innate beauty of poetry to tell the truth about what was there.”
Ms Saunders is the founder of the Poetry in First Languages project and she’s passionate about weaving language into her work.
“First Nations languages are very lyrical, melodic. They change as the landscape changes. There’s a synergy between language learning and poetry. Hopefully we can see more writers starting to write in language.”
No woman is an island entire of itself, and the journey to the publication of Kindred hasn’t occurred in isolation. Ms Saunders credits her family and the beautiful people around her for helping grow the wisdom which is finally distilled in this book.
Alison Whittaker, a Gomeroi woman and poet, advises prospective readers to not ‘… mistake [Kindred’s] tenderness for gentleness. Kirli is fierce in her protection of kin and love.’
For Ms Saunders, the creative process involves being fully present and aware of one’s surroundings.
“When I’m not listening, I miss things … To write poetry, you have to show up in order for it to pass through you. I have to show up with a pen and paper.”
Ms Saunders said she hopes her readers connect with the poems in Kindred.
“I want people to find themselves in these pages. To see parts of themselves and hopefully move in new directions.”
Kindred was released by Magabala Books, Australia’s oldest Indigenous publishing house, in May this year. It’s her second major publication—the first, was a children’s picture book titled The Incredible Freedom Machines, illustrated by Matt Ottley.
More information can be found at: https://www.magabala.com/kindred.html
By Madelaine Dickie
https://nit.com.au/kirli-saunders-bar...
Kirli Saunders bares us to bright moments in debut poetry collection
‘Poems made him conscious of his breathing. A poem bared the moment to things he was not normally prepared to notice.’
– Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis
Kirli Saunders’ debut collection Kindred offers a sequence of poems that shift seamlessly between the concrete and country, the tangible and the spiritual—and, like the best poems, they bare us to moments we’re often too busy, too distracted to notice.
The Wollongong-based poet anchors us with bright details: Mentos wrappers under couch cushions, a yellow bike kneading Glebe pathways, a walk home that smells of childhood piano lessons dipped in jasmine.
But Ms Saunders is not afraid to step beyond the known, to grasp for and allude to a deep and old knowledge that’s just beyond reach.
In ‘Disconnection’, a poem addressed to an unnamed little one, the proud Gunai woman muses on what it’s like to grow up when your roots have been wrenched from the earth. Ms Saunders writes,
I watch your
trembling limbs
ache to shake
in dance
and hear your lungs
as they gasp with songs unknown.
The poem falls into the first part of the book titled ‘Mother,’ which Ms Saunders said is about connection with culture.
“This first section of the book is about my mother being removed from country, and me trying to learn language, to learn about culture, and to learn how I fit in that landscape,” Ms Saunders said.
Not all the landscapes in Kindred are benevolent. The poem ‘Dharawal Country’ sends shivers through the skin, and Ms Saunders writes with power about the way country remembers.
She observes ants ‘like homicide crime scene cleaners’, bloody sap leaking secrets and ‘pine in place of eucalypt’.
“It’s important for poetry to tell the truth. I was struck by this beautiful landscape. But a massacre had occurred so close to where I was writing. So, I used the innate beauty of poetry to tell the truth about what was there.”
Ms Saunders is the founder of the Poetry in First Languages project and she’s passionate about weaving language into her work.
“First Nations languages are very lyrical, melodic. They change as the landscape changes. There’s a synergy between language learning and poetry. Hopefully we can see more writers starting to write in language.”
No woman is an island entire of itself, and the journey to the publication of Kindred hasn’t occurred in isolation. Ms Saunders credits her family and the beautiful people around her for helping grow the wisdom which is finally distilled in this book.
Alison Whittaker, a Gomeroi woman and poet, advises prospective readers to not ‘… mistake [Kindred’s] tenderness for gentleness. Kirli is fierce in her protection of kin and love.’
For Ms Saunders, the creative process involves being fully present and aware of one’s surroundings.
“When I’m not listening, I miss things … To write poetry, you have to show up in order for it to pass through you. I have to show up with a pen and paper.”
Ms Saunders said she hopes her readers connect with the poems in Kindred.
“I want people to find themselves in these pages. To see parts of themselves and hopefully move in new directions.”
Kindred was released by Magabala Books, Australia’s oldest Indigenous publishing house, in May this year. It’s her second major publication—the first, was a children’s picture book titled The Incredible Freedom Machines, illustrated by Matt Ottley.
More information can be found at: https://www.magabala.com/kindred.html
By Madelaine Dickie
December 14, 2020
4 nourishing stars.
“Matriarchs - For Mum
Here’s to you
and your soul
that is drained
but carries on giving
to you
who is tired
and restless
but keeps on
to you
so close to breaking
and yet so strong
so determined
to hold it together
for someone else
for something else
for something bigger
than yourself.”
Thank you Kirli. Your words resonated with me. Your book was like a warm comforting hug.
“Matriarchs - For Mum
Here’s to you
and your soul
that is drained
but carries on giving
to you
who is tired
and restless
but keeps on
to you
so close to breaking
and yet so strong
so determined
to hold it together
for someone else
for something else
for something bigger
than yourself.”
Thank you Kirli. Your words resonated with me. Your book was like a warm comforting hug.
June 16, 2020
I need to come back to this again and again. As wonderful a collection of poetry as any I've read.
Returned to the library, I'll need to get it out again and look out for my own copy to add to my collection.
Returned to the library, I'll need to get it out again and look out for my own copy to add to my collection.
September 17, 2020
Powerful.
I already want to read it again.
I already want to read it again.
January 11, 2023
simply amazing!
June 21, 2023
2.5 stars, didn’t really do it for me. Poetry is such a very personal connection, maybe of all the arts, and this one didn’t speak to me. Some very nice turns of phrase in there, tenderly expressed but overall didn’t save it for me
July 14, 2019
Kindred is the first published poetry collection by Kirli Saunders. At the absolute least of all this collection has a stunning cover that immediately made me want to read it. Most importantly what I found was so much beauty in between the pages. I think it is difficult to review poetry with it’s unique form and way of touching the readers but I do have to say I immediately connected with the prose within. I found myself falling into these pages, captivated from the moment I picked it up I greedily consumed pages and pages of it at a time and I know I’ll return to it again and again in the future. What I loved about this collection was how accessible it felt for poetry and if you are someone who doesn’t read this form much or know where to start, Kindred should be the top of your list.
I’m going to be a little lazy here and quote Alison Whittaker as all I would be doing is clumsily paraphrasing her words, a pale imitation that doesn’t give this collection the eloquence it deserves. Whittaker describes Kindred as “didactic in the best of ways – mob might take Kindred to be an instruction manual for remembering something just out of grasp in a colonised frame. Just don’t mistake it’s tenderness for gentleness. Kirli is fierce in her protection of kin and love.” Saunders is a First Nations voice you should get to know. I think it’s important we foster these minority voices who are the traditional custodians of this stolen land but even more the depth and beauty of this work deserves every bit of exposure and praise. I expect Saunders will have much more to say in the years to come and I am already eagerly anticipating more.
I’m going to be a little lazy here and quote Alison Whittaker as all I would be doing is clumsily paraphrasing her words, a pale imitation that doesn’t give this collection the eloquence it deserves. Whittaker describes Kindred as “didactic in the best of ways – mob might take Kindred to be an instruction manual for remembering something just out of grasp in a colonised frame. Just don’t mistake it’s tenderness for gentleness. Kirli is fierce in her protection of kin and love.” Saunders is a First Nations voice you should get to know. I think it’s important we foster these minority voices who are the traditional custodians of this stolen land but even more the depth and beauty of this work deserves every bit of exposure and praise. I expect Saunders will have much more to say in the years to come and I am already eagerly anticipating more.
February 20, 2021
[...] I sit with the Earth’s / umbilical cord, / wrap myself / and reconnect, / I draw my first breath
Kindred’s lilting verses are a testament to Kirli Saunders’ poetic and written talent, and a deeply intimate love letter to Country and to Aboriginal people everywhere. Celebrating Blak women, culture, and power, Saunders' work follows the legacy of brilliant Aboriginal poets and writers and carves her own stake in their history. Touching on themes of ancestral connection, Blak oppression, Country and environment, and familial connections, Saunders' melds together both her mother-tongue and the language of Aboriginal elders off Country, leveraging their Dreaming alongside her own.
Kindred’s lilting verses are a testament to Kirli Saunders’ poetic and written talent, and a deeply intimate love letter to Country and to Aboriginal people everywhere. Celebrating Blak women, culture, and power, Saunders' work follows the legacy of brilliant Aboriginal poets and writers and carves her own stake in their history. Touching on themes of ancestral connection, Blak oppression, Country and environment, and familial connections, Saunders' melds together both her mother-tongue and the language of Aboriginal elders off Country, leveraging their Dreaming alongside her own.
June 7, 2022
Favourite poems:
Mother// "I've spent hours now / searching for myself / in the symmetry of your skin / and the blues and greens of your depths
I watch the sand and dance to your tides / and see the tannins / like tea / tessellate upon your earthy limbs
I find my feet in the foot holes of our old people long gone now
And I know/ this/ is where I belong"
Aunty
"And I wondered / if it was with care / that they took you away / and settled you in a home / away from / your flesh, / your blood / your bone;
If it was with care / that you were given / their brand."
Dharawal Country
Mother// "I've spent hours now / searching for myself / in the symmetry of your skin / and the blues and greens of your depths
I watch the sand and dance to your tides / and see the tannins / like tea / tessellate upon your earthy limbs
I find my feet in the foot holes of our old people long gone now
And I know/ this/ is where I belong"
Aunty
"And I wondered / if it was with care / that they took you away / and settled you in a home / away from / your flesh, / your blood / your bone;
If it was with care / that you were given / their brand."
Dharawal Country
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2019
This is a lovely collection for 75 short poems by a strong young Aboriginal woman. I had to pleasure of hearing her read some of her work and do a talk at the Northern Territory Writers festival in May. She was a strong reader and speaker as well. A young talent for whom to watch. There were several poems that really spoke to me. This one is one of my favs:
WILLING
I sing you to me
each still night
with chords
silently spoken
to the folds
of your soul.
A melody-
magnetised
atom and ion
to pull you
in my direction
to harmonize.
WILLING
I sing you to me
each still night
with chords
silently spoken
to the folds
of your soul.
A melody-
magnetised
atom and ion
to pull you
in my direction
to harmonize.
July 16, 2021
Excellent poetry that is written in 3 different parts, but shows strong connection to land and to ancestors. The tenderness of love is well expressed in many poems, without ever showing love as easy, permanently earned, or something to be taken for granted. It is sometimes set in modern times as well, and offers some assistance in mindfulness and finding connection in a world where we are often uprooted.
October 13, 2019
So beautiful. There were a few i loved so much that i wrote them in one of my favorite books so i will always have them.
Kirli writes with incredible emotion and Australian imagery, and I love the sections written in Dharawal.
Kirli writes with incredible emotion and Australian imagery, and I love the sections written in Dharawal.
December 25, 2019
This has got to be one of the most hopeful collections I've read in a while. I don't know what it says about me that I read mostly upsetting and intense poetry collections, but this one made my heart feel light and full of hope and love.
August 20, 2020
There's a very palpable melody to these works by Kirli Saunders that really elevates the pieces. A beautiful and enjoyable read.
I longed for us,
to fall
for us
to be more than
what stood there before
I longed for us,
to fall
for us
to be more than
what stood there before
February 11, 2021
I'm not normally much of a poetry reader, but this was a beautiful collection. I borrowed it from the library and plan to buy it asap so that I can pick it up and read one of the poems whenever I feel the need.
April 13, 2021
The poetry in this book was captivating and had me by the heart. The way Kirli has written is simple yet powerful. The connections to Country and Aboriginal Language were gorgeous to read. Highly recommended purchasing this book so you can continually re-read her poems.
June 3, 2021
Beautiful, and often deeply personal yet simultaneously universal, poetry.
I particularly loved the poems referring to the lands of the Dharawal people, on which I currently live.
A gentle re-introduction to poetry following a long break, post-uni.
I particularly loved the poems referring to the lands of the Dharawal people, on which I currently live.
A gentle re-introduction to poetry following a long break, post-uni.
July 6, 2023
each poems holds a very unique and beautiful message or story that connects with the soul and heart in many different ways. Even if I can't fully relate to the poem, I still see and feel its message.
May 8, 2024
A masterful collection of poetry that truly speaks to audiences though the presentation of experiences that every person can connect to. I was entranced by each poem again and again and the precise use of language was executed so incredibly well.
January 21, 2020
As someone who doesn't read a lot of poetry, I was totally surprised by how much I loved these poems, and how much I just "got" them. An absolutely stunning collection.
April 24, 2020
Awesome, breathtaking poetry. Thank you for this gift of the most beautiful poetry. If you read one book of poetry make it this one.
June 24, 2020
Writing style:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Engagement:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Content:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Purpose:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Value:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Overall: 4.4 /5
Engagement:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Content:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Purpose:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Value:🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
Overall: 4.4 /5
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews