Maria van Neerven’s stunning and beguiling debut collection of poetry, TWO TONGUES (UQP 2026) is charmingly naïve in form and style, yet devastatingly profound in content and themes. This slim collection celebrates Blak history and contemporary culture, raises an angry voice against racism, colonialism, invasion and intergenerational trauma, and sings eloquent, intimate songs of family, land and connection.
The physical structure of this book is unusual and captivating. Some poems are spaced unevenly or erratically, some form word pictures, some are to be read sideways; there are handwritten notes, crossing-outs, bold font, borders and subheadings. An eclectic mix of authenticity and contemporary style; every page holds the reader’s attention with a new vibe, a new look, a new challenge from which to parse meaning.
The aptly named TWO TONGUES represents van Neerven’s repeated poetic approach of seemingly exploring two tongues (two people, two communities, two dividing thoughts) and engaging them in a conversation which inevitably results in dichotomies, simulacrums and similarities when they occasionally cross over.
As with all poetry collections, every reader will have their favourites. Mine are kuway; jagul; what if my mother was born white (‘nan wasn’t allowed to practise her tongue; frightened she’d be taken away she says quietly’); gumera (‘what do they know about kinship gumera blak/fella love’); anzac (referencing Blak men volunteering to fight in a war for a country that did not recognise their rights: ‘will their wht/gaze be kinder now than before knowing your blood is red’); warin; wadhun (‘when my mother died she left behind a woman who became a child an orphan searching in a bottomless world body knows when things shift’); lemondade (‘people would say grief has no ears for time’); qmc (‘queen mother coloniser do you sleep at night while our children stolen from their beds hear their mothers sobbing as you tuck yours safe in bed?’); i’m writing to you aunty (with a reference to author Ellen van Neerven’s ‘whole lot that’s the whole lot’’); trophies (about an artwork of a collection of indigenous children’s ears and body parts); genocide; first jahgam (recollecting the joyful shock of the birth of a first child); ode to wim (a beautiful poem recounting forty years of a biracial couple living together ‘untarnished by bigotry’); sink float; thousand years (full of cheeky humour); kanna; and kali.
Van Neerven’s work oozes generosity, flashes of anger, compassion, remembrance, a love of language, Blak pride, family, shame and empathy. Unpretentious and guileless, this collection will challenge and provoke thoughtful debate. It celebrates the First Nations people of this country and provides an intimate peek into the author’s real-life experiences.