The Living Poetry Project
A collective love poem
Relationships: they can be so different for each of us. They come in many forms. They can be easy, messy, gritty, complex, challenging and joyous. This is the essence of being human.
Learning to navigate relationships more consciously and with greater awareness is a step towards empowering our inner self. Through small acts of relational intelligence, and leaning into compassion, empathy and kindness, it opens the door to creating a more connected world for each of us.
The Living Poetry Project grew from an idea of placing relationships at the heart of our art. We asked four students to delve into their lived experience, who took inspiration from their own story and relationships, to compose a written piece to share with you during SEXtember. These words are their living poetry.
From this seed, grew a collaborative love poem. A nod to each of our student poets. Writer and poet Natalia Rachel has beautifully and collectively threaded each poem into a major video work to be explored by you. Greater than the sum of its parts, this is a true nod to relationships that are both Salty and Sweet.
Salty Sweet
Collective love poem by Natalia Rachel
Salty Sweet is the collective love poem threaded together by Natalia Rachel in response to the four student poems, with accompanying music composed by Sophia Christopher. Come along the journey through this living poetry.
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Salty Sweet
The span of my pendulum’s wings
Holds the echoes
Of all the love
I have yet to give
Smuggled away
Obvious and snug
The pattern of my pretty feathers
Gives me away.No matter how hard
I try to hide
There will always be those
Who see through my skin
Hear me breathing
Translucent bandages
A basket of untold stories
My love glows in the dark.The straw walls
Of my gingerbread house
Cradle the junk
Of our shared humanness
Revealed and ready
When you peak through
The keyhole of my heart
Innocent as a papercut.
When you look at
Me and my broken bird
It’s the closest you come
To giving me butterflies
My heart beats
Balanced between twin flamesSalty sweet
Terrified and famished
I want you here with me.Looking for laughter
Yet often lost
Inside the darkest impulse
The flames of my desire
Burn brighter than a white flag of peace
And the tears on my cheeks
Taste salty sweet
Living poetry.Can you rest here?
Sit with my feelings
No need to be anywhere
No need to run
Or create some other hot mess
The good news is
I can sit with myself
Alive.You can pursue me
Tantalize me
Or walk away into the woods
My heart remains here
Sending safety and hope
From my bones to yours
As I reclaim myself
I liberate you.This is love
Salty sweetSalty sweet.
The Chase
funeral, finally
Pendulum
Memento Mori
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"The Living Poetry project was born with the intention to allow life to inspire art that in turn will inspire personal and social evolution. Love, sex and relationships are at the heart of our human experience, yet so often we find it hard to put words to our experiences, let alone navigate them with peace and power. In today’s complex relational matrix, it’s more important than ever that we become more conscious, honest and intentional with the way we give and receive love.
The process began with offering a series of original poems to inspire thought and conversation, and continued, offering participants a series of creative doorways to evoke their own poetry. The process was designed to ignite a new way of understanding and communicating about relationships that is authentic, raw and relatable.
The culmination of the project saw me taking the students works to create a collective love poem that represents the pulse of the current relational landscape that is underscored by an original composition by composer Sophia Christopher.
The Living Poetry Project is both a process and an artwork that takes us to a healthier, more empowered relational future."
- Natalia Rachel
The Living Poetry Project is a joint collaborative project between the Music Performance Unit, the Health Promotion Unit and the Media and Immersive team and proudly supported by Medibank. It was launched in SEXtember 2024, and sits alongside Untold Stories, a lived experience storytelling project that showcases real stories, by real people.
Thank you to Natalia Rachel, author and poet, and Sophia Christopher, composer, for their contributions to this project.
Relationships can be raw, messy and yet beautiful. This poetry reflects the lived experience of UNSW students and their relationships with themselves and others. The stories are deeply personal. Such experiences evoke our emotions and memories, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Please know you do not need to struggle alone or in silence. Support is available at UNSW.