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Poetry in the Cities of LiteratureSusie Anderson

Please, meet Susie Anderson from Melbourne City of Literature
Susie Anderson writes toward the places where land and language meet. Her poetry and prose are rooted in her Wergaia and Wemba Wemba heritage, exploring memory, art, and connection to Country. Her acclaimed debut, the body country (Hachette, 2023), affirms writing as a form of return.
www.susan.fyi


surveillance
When you take a photo with your phone
it tracks your location precisely.
There was one photo of us actually
looking like a couple. We were
walking through Fitzroy North and you
were going to that girl s house but
I was being cool and pretending
I didn’t mind at all. Exact details
saved with the file: mid-May,
just before midnight, even the street name.
There was a cat nearby and I patted it.
You took photos of me, hair falling
onto the cat’s body, as I lovingly held it.
Strange, you then made us take pictures
together. Our faces are tinged
street-lamp yellow. Our eyes filled
with the following: you upset me,
I forgive you, I lose myself.
the more things (written for Melbourne Now at NGV)
A moment to appreciate the quiet work of time.
How far I’ve come since the pain of seeing you hold hands with someone else on Gertrude Street, finding refuge in the sprawling roots of a Moreton Bay fig in the Exhibition Gardens to exorcise every last feeling on the phone to my friend who said you were nothing.
That era was Bowditch and Barnett heartbreak, mapping my heartbeat on top of this city.
When I moved here to find love, I was a cardigan-clad loner, calloused index finger from smoking rollies and flipping through zines.
These days I unmap the place and ride my bike down streets which were once creek. Cruise alongside eels in the gutter, imagine them big like worms from Dune.
At traffic lights I stop and look up, not down at my feet, and see old Barak’s face keeping watch on his Country.
Lately non-Aboriginal people are much more interested. In who you are, where you come from. Now they care about where they live, play, create on Kulin lands.
I’m back in Melbourne now, and things have changed.


The project was created by the Odesa UNESCO City of Literature and being implemented with funds raised by .Reykjavík Bókmenntaborg UNESCO as part of the readings initiated by Milano City of Literature Milano City of Literature “Not Just Words” (Reading for Odesa) on February 24, 2024

Illustration

© 2026 Odesa UNESCO City of Literature

Website courtesy of the Ukrainian Cosmopolis

All rights reserved

Illustration

© 2026 Odesa UNESCO City of Literature

Website courtesy of the Ukrainian Cosmopolis

All rights reserved