The Rot, new work by Evelyn Araluen, Australian poet

5 November 2025

The Rot, by Indigenous Australian author Evelyn Araluen (Instagram page), follows up 2021’s Dropbear, which won the 2022 Stellar Prize.

The Rot is a recalcitrant study of the decaying romances, expired hopes and abject injustices of the world. A liturgy for girlhood in the dying days of late-stage capitalism, these poems expose fraying nerves and tendons of a speaker refusing to avert their gaze from the death of Country, death on Country, and the bloody violence of settler colonies here and afar.