AustLit

'Tossed Up by the Beak of a Cormorant is a poetic collaboration between award-winning poet Nandi Chinna and Aboriginal elder Professor Anne Poelina. It explores the politics and the culture of one of Australia's last great unregulated waterways, the Martuwarra Fitzroy River.

'Martuwarra Fitzroy River is Australia's last great unregulated waterway. It is also a significant element of Australia's largest Indigenous heritage site and, for some, it also represents untapped revenue. When in flood, the river has the power to destroy communities and livelihoods. But above all, to Professor Anne Poelina, the mighty river is a venerated living ancestor who must be protected. This collaboration between award-winning poet Nandi Chinna and Anne Poelina - the elder who guided Nandi's
own relationship with the river - takes the reader on a journey of absorbing immersion and growing understanding as a conversation in poetry reveals the mighty river's beauty and vulnerability.' (Publication summary)