Established in 2016, Queensland Poetry Festival’s Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize is Australia’s only open-age Indigenous poetry prize for an unpublished poem. Named in honour of Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse, after receiving permission from Oodgeroo’s family and in close consultation with Quandamooka Festival.

My voice echoes the cries of my forefathers My feet trek truths of my ancestors I rise in the essence of my predecessors

we are thieves of sunlight mother and i, soaking in the seasonal crusts

My grandfather was the bush, the coast, salmon gums, hakeas, blue-grey banskias Wind-whipped water, tea-black estuaries, sun on grey stone My grandfather was born on Country, was buried on Country

By waragal nightfall, Koori ngurra, Black’s camp. Firelight - tree flickering. Sounds of singing, gumleaf playing, trilling. Arriving in her true country, calling her, singing her.

I remember days at La Pa going out with the Aunties to look for quandongs