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CloseSHORTLISTED, 2020 AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS, SMALL PUBLISHERS’ ADULT BOOK OF THE YEAR
SHORTLISTED, 2021 VICTORIAN PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARDS, INDIGENOUS WRITING
COMMENDED, 2020 KATE CHALLIS RAKA AWARD
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.
"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."
– Madelaine Dickie, National Indigenous Times
"As you read Kindred, your body's rhythms match the beat of Kirli's words. They are unrelenting and nourishing. Saunders takes seriously printed poetry's freshest contemporary impulse to address its reader directly and courageously - without smarm, ego or pretence - and she uses it to urge a commitment to Country and its deep past... Just don't mistake its tenderness for gentleness. Kirli is fierce in her protection of kin and love."
– Alison Whittaker