Writing Water: Rain, River, Reef

From cloud forests to flood, water connects us in every sense

Red Room Poetry’s Writing Water: Rain, River, Reef project is commissioning celebrated poets and inviting public submissions that look below the surface and reimagine our essential relationships with water. From the slow-moving waters of TarraWarra in Victoria to the extinction of corals and conversations with wetlands in Western Australia, poems are provocations to honour, remember and interrogate our responsibilities with water in a time of environmental change. 

 

Writing Water chapbook | Now available

From rain, rivers and reefs to tidal pools and coastal shelves, the Writing Water chapbook is a bespoke collection of 24 poems, written by commissioned and public poets about their relationship with our earth's most precious resource, water. BUY ONLINE >>

Produced with sustainability and community at its heart, Writing Water was created with the Rizzeria using natural dyes and a handprinted Risograph stencil process, giving it a lovely hand-crafted texture that may remain on your fingertips. We hope that each poem serves as a reminder of how water should be held in the hand, gently and with gratitude.

Read poems by

Eunice Andrada
Tony Birch
Luke Davies
Georgina Reid
Brooke Scobie                                    
Claire Albrecht                        

Magdalena Ball                                  
Jane Gibian                            
Anne Casey                            
J V Birch                                 
Anna Jacobson           
Duy Quang Mai                      
Raynen Bajette O’Keefe        
Jenny Pollak                           
Esther Ottaway                      
Paris Lay-Yee                          
Margaret Owen Ruckert        
Sara Morgillo
Anastasia Radievska              
Peter Mitchell                        
Sean West                              
Ann Shenfield              

Anne Elvey                              

Shona Hawkes

Poets

Poems

answer , the poem begins with a breathing reef , sanctuary , How Water Works , Black Ophelia , Birrarung Billabong , PYROCENE TRIPTYCH , There is Nothing Heavier Than a River , Avicennia marina , Low Tide in the Mangroves

Workshop with Eunice Andrada | Wednesday 12 August

Award-winning Filipina poet Eunice Andrada led an immersive Writing Water workshop designed to help us explore our relationships with water in all its forms: as witness, giver, receiver. 65 participants came together to create unique poems for consideration in the Red Room Poetry Writing Water chapbook.

Poems float on Sydney Ferries

Noticed anything new on your ferry commute? To celebrate World Poetry Day and the launch of Writing Water, poems sailed on Sydney Ferries throughout March. In November, the published chapbooks were hand-delivered by the RR team to some ferry commuters on Transport NSW’s F4 Cross Harbour Ferry. On the journey, we met a fellow poet, a photographer, ferry workers and a youth worker, with whom we shared this incredible collection of poems.

 

 

Partners and Supporters

Writing Water: Rain, River, Reef is supported by generous individuals, TarraWarra Museum of Art for the TarraWarra Biennial 2020 and our major partners: