The Kindness of Water

We are delighted to announce our latest publication, The Kindness of Water, a book of poems by Helen Jarvis.

Helen is a British-born writer who has lived for two decades in Melbourne/Naarm.  Her writing has won the Nillumbik Poetry Ekphrasis award and the Ada Cambridge awards for poetry and biographical prose. She was runner-up in the 2024 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize and has been shortlisted for poetry prizes including the ACU, MPU and Martha Richardson awards. Her work has appeared in award anthologies and in the Australian journals Island and Rabbit, and she has featured on 3CR’s Spoken Word radio program. In 2024, Helen performed her poetry at the Third International Poetry Festival of Naoussa in Greece. 

The Kindness of Water, first collection of poetry, is a delight.  Wide-ranging, sensitive an reflective, it is characterised by certain sense of longing: the perennial migrant experience, suspended between embracing a new world and regretting a world that has been lost. The perspective that emerges from this precarious balance lends a freshness and an urgency to the close observation that characterises these poems.

The book will be launched in Williamstown on April 5.  We will provide more details of the launch shortly. But you don’t need to wait; the book was released on 14 March and is now available for sale on the 5 Islands Press website.  Or ask your local bookstore to order a copy for you.