Published in Overland Issue The 2018 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize · Uncategorized Winner: Quandongs Brenda Saunders I remember days at La Pa going out with the Aunties to look for quandongs growing on the hill Selecting bright bush cherries ready to drop ─ a bite too bitter still for my sweet tooth The women would laugh as they sorted patting hot-pink fruit laced with wild honey teaching us bush tucker way Each ball rolled on the tongue ─ sent a sudden shock to the back of my throat A sweet sour hit ─ the after-taste perfumed with blossom Image: Giuseppe Milo / flickr Brenda Saunders Brenda Saunders is a poet and visual artist of Aboriginal and British descent. She has published three collections of poetry and her work has appeared in major anthologies and journals, including Australian Poetry Journal, Overland, Southerly, and Best Australian Poems in 2013 and 2015 (Black Inc). She has received numerous prizes including the Mick Dark Varuna Environmental Writers’ Fellowship, the Banjo Patterson Poetry Prize, and was a finalist in the prestigious Aesthetica Prize (UK) and the International Vice-Chancellors Poetry Prize (University of Canberra). She is a member of DiVerse Poets who write and perform their ekphrastic poetry in Sydney art galleries. More by Brenda Saunders › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 27 November 202427 November 2024 · Cartoons So much to tell you: or, piercing plant tissue with needle-like mouth-parts Sofia Sabbagh Looking for things meant I could enjoy the feeling in my body. Something like hope, or friendship. 25 November 202425 November 2024 · Reviews Poetic sustenance: a close reading of Ellen van Neerven’s “Finger Limes” Liliana Mansergh As a poem attuned to form, embodiment, sensory experience and memory, van Neerven’s “Finger Limes” presents an intricate meditation on poetic sustenance and survival. Its riddling currents exemplify how poetry is not sustained along a linear axis but unfolds in eddies and counter currents.