Finding What Always Was

Born in the silence of lockdowns and the noise of systemic change, the Deadly Poets Society began as a circle of Indigenous and non-Indigenous health researchers who met fortnightly to write, reflect, and hold space for one another. What started as a response to the isolation of COVID-19 became something far deeper: a creative practice rooted in trust, Country, and connection.Finding What Always Was is the anthology born of that practice, speaking both to the soul of research and to a nation still reckoning with its identity. Through poetic inquiry, these scholars trace the emotional and intellectual terrain of working across cultures in colonised systems. Their words are rivers eroding mountains: sometimes raging with change, sometimes trickling unseen, but always flowing. They write in open circles etched in sand, in quiet reflection, in a corroboree grownof deep soil where curiosity overcomes criticism, and no tall poppy stands alone. Here, creativity transforms inquiry. Here, scholarship is cool water on a weary day, "a tender dressing for academic hurt," roots cracking concrete so truth can breathe.This anthology is both record and revelation. It is a testament to the strength of community in times of uncertainty, and a meditation on what it means to live, work, and create within complex academic and cultural spaces. It is a reminder that research itself can be a corroboree, a river, a spiral, an act of pure creation, and that poetry is a place where"nothing is destroyed, nothing is lost."