Writing Water: Rain, River, Reef

Writing Water-Sydney Ferry-Amelia Theodorakis-Poet-Red Room Poetry

Writing Water chapbok-close up cover-Red Room Poetry-Image.png

below the ground and expect
sanctuary in the heat
another town cracking open

~ Eunice Andrada from 'sanctuary'

Is it here we go,
when water takes its leave,
seeping unseen
to the deepest place.
~ Georgina Reid from 'There is Nothing Heavier Than a River'

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

Red Room Poetry’s Writing Water: Rain, River, Reef project commissioned celebrated poets and invited public submissions to peer 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, the collected poems are provocations to honour, remember and interrogate our responsibilities with water in a time of environmental change.

Our four commissioned poets include Tony Birch, Eunice Andrada, Luke Davies and Georgina Reid.

Writing Water chapbook

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.

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.