Maxine Beneba Clarke Maxine Beneba Clarke i(A121996 works by) (a.k.a. Maxine Clarke)
Gender: Female
Heritage: Afro-Caribbean
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BiographyHistory

Maxine Clarke is an Australian writer and poet of Afro-Caribbean descent. Born and raised in Kellyville, in suburban Sydney, she is the daughter of a mathematician and an actress, who emigrated from England in the 1970s. Clarke holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts/Law (majoring in Creative Writing and Human Rights) from the University of Wollongong.

Clarke was a title holder of the NSW Writers' Centre/Gleebooks Annual Poetry Sprint, placed second in the Doris Leadbetter Poetry Slam, and the Northern Notes Poetry Slam, and was a finalist in the Melbourne Writers' Festival Poetry Slam during the 1990s.

Her short plays have been produced and her poetry broadcast on radio and presented at writers' festivals. Her reviews, articles and poems have been published in Tertangala, Voiceworks, Kunapipi Academic Journal of Post-Colonial Literature, The Sydney Observer, Melbourne's Child, Conscious Living, The Age, and The Saturday Paper, among other periodicals and newspapers.

After publishing a range of short works, Clarke released Foreign Soil, a collection of short stories with a particular focus on the African diaspora, in 2014: it had won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript in the previous year and went on to win an Indie Award (debut fiction) and an Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) (Australian literary fiction book of the year), as well as attracting shortlistings for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, the ABIA Matt Richell Award, and the Stella Prize. In 2015, it saw Clarke named one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists of the Year.

In 2016, Clarke followed up with a flurry of works: the memoir The Hate Race, the poetry collection Carrying the World, and the children's picture book The Patchwork Bike. All three attracted further awards: The Patchwork Bike was named a Children's Book Council notable book, Carrying the World won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for poetry (and was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award), and The Hate Race won a NSW Premier's Literary Award, as well as earning Clarke her second nomination for the Stella Prize (among other shortlistings). The Patchwork Bike went on to earn a range of awards, including the picture book category at the 2019 Boston Globe - Horn Book Awards.

In 2022, she was announced as the University of Melbourne's inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence, beginning in January 2023.

Exhibitions

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Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon It's the Sound of the Thing : 100 New Poems for Young People Prahran : Hardie Grant Books , 2023 25767815 2023 selected work poetry

'It's the Sound of the Thing is an exciting collection of poetry for children and teens from Maxine Beneba Clarke, one of Australia’s most innovative and celebrated poets.

'This extraordinary collection celebrates the joy of language and features evocative, enticing poems about everyday life – the sounds of the block, the boredom of detention, and the happenings in the schoolyard. About candy, peanut butter and puddles. About a big brother’s messy room, a grandfather’s fading memory, and a grandmother’s garden magic. Through haiku, sonnets, narrative verse, rhyming couplets, limericks, free verse and more, Maxine invites children and young teens to fall in love with the wonder that is poetry.' (Publication summary) 

 

2024 winner Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Book of the Year for Younger Children
2024 winner APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Children's/Young Adult Cover designed by Pooja Desai.
2024 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Children's Literature
y separately published work icon 11 Words for Love Sydney : Lothian , 2022 24800992 2022 single work picture book children's

'There are eleven words for love, and my family knows them all.

'A family flees their homeland to find safety in another country, carrying little more than a suitcase full of love.

'As their journey unfolds, the oldest child narrates 11 meanings for love in Arabic as her family show, and are shown, all different kinds of love in their new home, and they also remember the love they have for their homeland and for those left behind or lost along the way.

'In the Arabic language, there are over 50 words describing the degrees of love. That's 50 stories, 50 life-worlds. This lyrical and heartwarming book takes you on a journey through 11 of these Arabic expressions for love.' (Publication summary)

2023 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Children's Fiction
2023 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Multicultural NSW Award
2023 CBCA Book of the Year Awards Notable Book Picture Book
y separately published work icon How Decent Folk Behave Sydney : Hachette Australia , 2021 22587333 2021 selected work poetry

'we are all just one small disaster

away from sinking,

and sometimes you only realise

when you're gasping for air

'On a daylight street in Minneapolis Minnesota, a Black man is asphyxiated - by callous knee of an officer, by cruel might of state, and under crushing weight of colony. In Melbourne the body of another woman has been found - this time, after catching a late tram home.

'The Atlantic has run out of the English alphabet, when christening hurricanes this season. The earth is on fire - from the redwoods of California, to Australia's east coast. The sea draws back, and tsunamis lash out in Samoa and Sumatra. Water rises in Sulawesi and Nagasaki. Bloated cod are surfacing, all along the Murray Darling.

'The virus arrives, and the virus thrives. Authorities seal the public housing towers up, and truck in one cop to every five residents. Notre Dame is ablaze - the cathedral spire blackened, and teetering.

'Out in Biloela, the deportation vans have arrived. Every Friday, in cities all across the world, children are walking out of school. The wolves are circling. The wolves are circling.

'These poems speak of the world that is, and sing for a world that may one day be.' (Publication summary)

2022 shortlisted APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Literary Fiction / Poetry Cover designed by Allison Colpoys.
2022 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Poetry
Last amended 15 Dec 2022 08:51:53
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