The Water Bearer

Water is contained in these poems in many different ways: from the water filling a second-hand cooler in an old farmhouse to ocean riptides and impassive dams; from swimming lessons to paddocks layered with water after rain. From scheme water, pipelines and a countryside in the grip of drought – the water in this collection is a many-sided metaphor. Tracy Ryan’s latest collection of poems is full of intimate intensity and clear vision, each poem wrought with consummate skill by "one of Australia’s most gifted poets" (Marion May Campbell).

Tracy Ryan is an award-winning poet born in Western Australia who has also lived in England, the United States and Ireland, and recently completed a residency in Germany. The Water Bearer is her eighth poetry title with Fremantle Press. She has also published Hoard (2015) with Whitmore Press, and earlier books with Arc and Bloodaxe in Britain. Tracy Ryan is also the author of four novels: Claustrophobia, Sweet, Jazz Tango and Vamp. A fifth novel, We Are Not Most People, will be published in 2018. In 2010 she was editor of Fremantle Poets 1: New Poets, and in 2017 co-editor of The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry.