Baptism
Nola Firth
full immersion
in fat brown lakes
roof islands over our sunken beds
water falling from sky falling down all fall down
the gravity of water urgent to sea do we see
do we see the mud the mud maps left the clues if we look
the puzzle in the pile of dented empty tanks swollen
drawers that no longer fit books turned to mush
the message no longer in fine print
In addition to academic publications and a biography Nola Firth has published two poetry collections: Even if the Sun (Melbourne Poets Union, 2013), and Counting on Murwillumbah, (Mark Time Books, 2018). Nola has been short listed for several national poetry prizes, won the Byron Writers Festival Dangerously Poetic Poetry Prize in 2017 and was equal winner of the Rhonda Jancovic Literary Award in 2015. She holds a Phd and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a Churchill Fellow. She moved from Victoria to Murwillumbah New South Wales in 2016 and in 2022 was elected as a Greens Councillor for the Tweed Shire Council.