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 3 March 20253 March 2025 · Cartoons RIP woke, methed-up Ned Kelly Sam Wallman and Reuben Winmar Upon visiting the State Library of Victoria on a warm December morning, Sam Wallman and Reuben Winmar speculate on what Ned Kelly might get up to if he was alive today. 27 February 202527 February 2025 · ecology Keeping it in the ground: pasts, presents and futures of Australian uranium Nicholas Herriot Uranium has come a long way from the “modern Midas mineral” of the 1950s. However, in an increasingly dangerous, militaristic and volatile world, it remains a lucrative and potentially lethal metal. And it is so important precisely because of its contested past and possible futures.
