Oombulgurri is a poignant poem by Yankunytjatjara/Kokatha poet Ali Cobby Eckermann, published in her 2015 anthology Inside My Mother. It reflects on the 2011 forced closure and subsequent demolition of the Oombulgurri Aboriginal community in northern Western Australia by the state government.
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Beyond Gilbert’s published work, oral historians have collected "micro-poems"—short, devastating lyrics written by Oombulgurri elders on scrap paper as the community emptied in 2011. These are not widely published due to cultural restrictions (men's/women's business) and the trauma associated with the closure. A genuine PDF of these community-authored poems is rare and often restricted to university archives. In some academic contexts
The legendary Aboriginal poet and activist Kevin Gilbert (1933–1993) wrote extensively about Kimberley injustices. While his seminal work People Are Legends (1978) does not contain a poem explicitly named Oombulgurri, his verses about mission life and forced removal echo the settlement’s trauma. Now the buildings stand so still
In some academic contexts, the poem is credited to Aboriginal activist and writer Charmaine Papertalk-Green (a renowned poet from the Yamatji and Wajarri language groups), who has written extensively about dislocation and colonial violence in the Kimberley. In other versions, the poem is described as a community lament—a collective work passed orally before being transcribed in local school anthologies or land rights documentation.
Oombulgurri, Oombulgurri, Now the buildings stand so still, But the stories of the people, Are with us still.