Abstract

Water Street is a collection of poems exploring the significance of family, belonging, legitimacy and home. The poems focus on Sydney's relationship with her family, the importance of which she renegotiates in solitude after leaving home to go to school. The poems which range from dramatic monologue to lyric to narrative explore her anxiety about her relationships weakening as she changed in her new environment. The manuscript is divided into three sections: first, "Dramatis Personae," in which the main characters are introduced, sometimes in Sydney's voice, sometimes in the characters' own voices. Second, "Departure" in which Sydney questions what it means to be at home, resists adjusting to her new town and is nostalgic. Finally, in "Gathering me, you gather Yourself", Sydney tries to define the lines between herself and her loved ones and get a sense of who her loved ones are in order to get a sense of who she is. Sydney longs for her childhood home but reminds herself that it is not what it once was, she longs for a different kind of father than she had, and for her granddad, who died before she was born. The poems constitute an exploration of self, place, family and a journey towards adjusting to the circumstances of one's life and letting go of a fear of loss.