Product details
- ISBN 9781741176926
- Weight: 196g
- Dimensions: 128 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 01 May 2020
- Publisher: Hardie Grant Explore
- Publication City/Country: AU
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
With lyrics rich in rhyme, Homeland Calling is a hip-hop poetry collection that channels culture and challenges stereotypes. Edited by award-winning author and poet Ellen van Neerven, these words have all been written by First Nations youth from remote and regional communities around Australia. Their verses are the result of young artists exploring their place in the world and expressing the future they want to live in.
Organised into four sections, ‘Country is my heartbeat', 'History is in my bloodline', 'Flame in the struggle' and 'Pride in my people', the words of these deadly, young poets offer wider Australia a rare insight into their thoughts, hopes and dreams. At the back of the book, you'll find a notes section written by Ellen that addresses many of the basic misconceptions regarding First Nations histories and peoples. There's also a glossary of words used in the poems that demonstrate the diversity of languages spoken across this country.
Foreword by internationally acclaimed Yolngu hip-hop artist Danzal Baker (aka Baker Boy), artwork by Gamilaroi Yuwaalaraay artist Lakkari Pitt.
Desert Pea Media (DPM) is a not-for-profit organisation working with First Nations Australians to create social change through collaborative storytelling. DPM collaborates with First Nations communities and schools across Australia, running workshops that focus on empowering First Nations youth and encouraging pride in their cultural identity. Their workshops reinvigorate traditional storytelling culture through the contemporary mediums of music, song, film and performance. DPM have run over 100 workshops in more than 70 remote and regional communities across Australia including Wilcannia, Cowra, Townsville, Alice Springs, Moree, Tiwi Islands and Thursday Island. Their workshops have helped launch a number of First Nations hip hop groups, including the B-Town Warriors from Bourke, who won a National Indigenous Music Award in 2018. All royalties from the book will go towards an annual training and development event that brings together young people, trainees, artists and mentors from remote and regional communities to share, learn and create together.
Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer and editor of Mununjali Yugambeh heritage from south-east Queensland. Ellen’s fictional debut Heat and Light (UQP, 2014) was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. Ellen is also the author of two volumes of poetry, Comfort Food (UQP, 2016) and Throat (UQP, 2020).
