Kirli Saunders

Kirli Saunders is a proud Gunai woman and an award-winning international writer of poetry, plays and picture books. She is a teacher, cultural consultant and artist. In 2020, Kirli was named the NSW Aboriginal Woman of the Year. Her debut picture book The Incredible Freedom Machines (Scholastic Press) was shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Her poetry collection, Kindred (Magabala Books) was shortlisted for the ABIA 2020 Book Awards. Her verse novel, Bindi (Magabala Books) was the inaugural winner of the 2021 WA Premier’s Book Awards’ Daisy Utemorrah Award, Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Award, QLD Literary Award and the Australian Book Industry Award.

Kirli’s poetry features in anthologies published by Magabala Books, UQP and Penguin Random House. She was a finalist in the 2019 NOW Contemporary Art Prize, her artworks have been commissioned for Wollongong Gallery, Shoalhaven Gallery and Curio Gallery. In 2021, she held her first solo poetic arts exhibition, Returning. 

'Go Rogue', a new poem by Kirli Saunders

October 2023, no. 458 • 24 September 2023

I latch onto the mantra let them goand go off the grid switch the phone to moon mode[do not disturb me]and later switch it off go roguego smoke signals forged in a fire boiling yabbies we caught in the creek go clouds of white in b ... (read more)