KAYE ALDENHOVEN
Background
In 1971 Kaye Aldenhoven moved to Umbakumba on Groote Eylandt from South Australia. She then lived and taught at Yuendumu, Amoonguna, Alice Springs, Darwin, Jabiru, Groote Eylandt and was Principal of all three NT Area Schools (at Jabiru in Kakadu, Alyangula on Groote Eylandt and Batchelor). These moves were important for the direction of her work.
Aldenhoven is an important poet in the NT scene: using her experience of the country in her work; and being involved in the Northern Territory Writers Centre in Darwin and helping to foster some of the many literary projects that dynamic city fosters.
Her first book, In my Husband's Country, was a clear and deft response to country in a way that is peculiarly Territorian... as is her involvement in cross-art performances of poetry, dance ritual, and textiles. In 1992 she won the Northern Territory Red Earth Literary Award. She has edited a number of anthologies and was included in artist's book / anthology Terra Australis which was published in Italy in both English and Italian.
In 2004 her PressPress chapbook, Skin, was launched at the Wordstorm Festival in Darwin where it attracted significant interest. This chapbook extends Aldenhoven's engagement with (and the conundrum of) living in country. This is an important theme in non-metropolitan Australian poetry which is not much taken up in the urbanised fringes. Poetically, Aldenhoven eschews overtly decorative language and aims for a clear and clarifying diction to illuminate her themes.
Kaye Aldenhoven likes visiting unusual places (and has travelled extensively in Indonesia, India, China, Turkey, West Papua, Nepal and Sarawak) but she likes reading and writing poetry more. In her poetry, the usual becomes strange and the worlds to which most of us are strange come closer.