Tais Rose Wae, Riverbed Sky Songs

Riverbed Sky Songs is an admiration and imagining of the inherent links between ecosystems and the human experience. The poetry collection challenges colonial form and storytelling and is tenderly woven across the page to mirror Wae’s connection to Country; found in moments of enamour amidst soft pockets of moss at the edge of a riverbed, in the reminder of strength and of spirit as reflected in the surface of a pearl, to the ancestral songs and knowing that are passed on through blood. It is an ode to the legacy of labour, power, courage and love of writers before us, and an offering of an ember to our children who will keep the fires of care and culture burning. Riverbed Sky Songs is a transformative process of discovery that enacts as a reminder to return, to walk gently, and to listen with as great a depth as the seabed alongside which many of these poems were remembered and recalled.

Tais Rose Wae is an artist and poet whose work explores the interconnection and imprint of maps of lineage, motherhood, and her Aboriginal ancestry. Her poetry is strongly imbued with a curiosity for and connection to the natural world. It has most recently been reimagined at the Biennale of Sydney and recognised amongst the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize and Judith Wright Poetry Prize shortlists and the Peter Porter longlist, as well as being selected as runner-up for the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers. Wae's work can be found in publications including the Australian Poetry Anthology, Best of Australian Poetry, Cordite, Overland Literary Journal, Running Dog, West Space Offsite, and Westerly.

Tais Rose Wae, Riverbed Sky Songs
August 2023. 148mm x 210mm. 112pp.
ISBN 978-1-925735-58-1
Forthcoming 2023

This project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.