She is the Earth

Judges' comments

She is the Earth is a stunning verse novel that takes the reader on a journey of love and grief, through land, sky and water, and all places in between. This is surreal creation story contains many other stories and worlds within the whole. A story of breath and breadth, it is both other-worldly and inner-worldly, with the distinction between the two realms fuzzy and flowing across each other to astonishing affect.

Ali Cobby Eckermann writes in a poetics of self-emergence in which the spectral is made solid through an eloquent economy of language and lifeforms. Each word of this verse novel is deeply considered and rich with meaning, forming as a whole a narrative which is sometimes gentle and sometimes sharp, both beautiful and terrible, and always profound in its exploration of healing, hope and the earth. Each word reads as a gift to the reader.

The judges chose this title as the winner not only for its amazing technical accomplishment that creates such a world in such an economical form, but also because the story itself changed the way the judges saw the world and their places in it. She is the Earth was an emotional, transformative journey for all the judges, which made it a standout among the shortlist.