But the unending rhetoric of transit
Returns to the cubicle

~ Lisa Gorton, commissioned poet, Toilet Doors 2006

The Toilet Doors learning resource is based around the idea of guerrilla poetry, which involves publishing poetry in unconventional ways, where you might least expect it, to directly engage with audiences.

Rather than struggling to find publishers and traditional audiences for their poetry, guerrilla poets take things into their own hands. They self-publish small chapbooks and broadsides (larger format posters pasted in public places) or publish their poems as stencil or street art. Red Room Poetry's Toilet Doors Poetry project published commissioned poems and accompanying artworks on toilet doors across the country in 2004 and 2006, seizing on a new, captive audience for contemporary poetry.

The Toilet Doors Poetry learning resource encourages students to come up with new and creative ways of publishing the poetry that they compose in the workshops. In the past, this has taken various forms, from installations in school libraries, to sticking their poems on the backs of toilet doors in their local community.

Feature Project: Fitzroy High, 2009

Fitzroy High was the first school to run the Toilet Doors Poetry learning resource in 2009, and the students and staff took great pleasure in interpreting the project in their own way. Their final exhibition included a cubicle-themed installation, along with posters of the student poems illustrated by classmates in visual artts classes. Take a look at their project page here.

Bring Toilet Doors to your class

To book a Poetic Learning workshop with the Toilet Doors resource, email education@redroomcompany.org or call 02 9319 5090.