WRITER
Amarantha is a Jamaican/ Australian writer, performer and independent theatre-maker whose work is an active expression of community engagement and the advocacy of Black voices. With her dance background, Jamaican culture, musicality, proclivity for research and lyrical storytelling, she makes a kind of rich multiform narrative theatre that has never before been presented in Australia. In 2023, she was selected for La Mama Theatre’s Pathways Writers Program and Malthouse Theatre’s Besen writer’s program.
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She is also a skilled grant writer who has successfully received three major arts grants between 2021 and 2024 - 2 City of Melbourne grants and a highly competitive Creative Australia grant. She provides grant writing services for arts organisations and individuals.
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Writing credits:
2025 - "River Mumma and the Golden Table" - play - in development
2024 - "Ilarun:The Cutting Comb" - play - premiere season Dec 5 -15, 2024 @ fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2021 - "Oshun" - play - 2 seasons - Feb 28 to March 3rd, 2024 and Dec 1st to 4th, 2022 @ La Mama Theatre
​2020 - "Clean Slate" - published non-fiction book
2020 - "Sex wasn't the Villain" - Article in The Guardian
2018 - 2020 - several articles in The Australian
2016 - several articles in Ocean Magazine
2008 - "The Other Side of Green" - short film
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WRITING SAMPLES
POETRY
copyright Amarantha Robinson
Throne
She had a vibe All. Her. Own.
Conformity lost its grip and bemoaned
Stiff old school narratives brazenly dethroned
What appeared to be a lowly peon has cut loose with a lyrical prance
Whilst the rest heed the call for a militant stance
She had a vibe you could smell from a fair distance
The scent of sage dripped from her pores, with no resistance
She had a vibe and it soothed like a warm lush Caribbean breeze
One that made hearts melt and even the coldest feel at ease
She had her own vibe and knew what felt good inside
It made her choices look like a wild chaotic ride
She had a vibe and used it like a sailor’s compass
Letting it navigate her way round this Earthly campus
Wondering where it would lead, she let it carry her on its sleeve
Pain could no longer weave a mirage and her mind deceive
Good feeling and bliss, now high on her list
If it didn’t hit the mark, well then....
she gave it a miss
This path decries that oft treasured trophies, like corporate careers, might be skipped by
But there is a knowing that more attuned pleasures on the horizon lie
She had a vibe and
learnt to choose herself above all else
There’d been a stripping down to softness by life’s insistent pelt
The cradling of God’s calloused curves had shown her what was needed
That the Universe wanted her joy and her true desires are what it heeded
Now, she wisely closes her eyes and taps into the subtle energies that belie
Picking the next thing based on what scintillates the wonder between her thighs
Nourishment, movement and receiving are the bouncy bottom of her bosom’s cleaving
Music, magic and miraculous manifestations, the only means of upheaving
She has a vibe and it’s
All.
Her.
Own.
This Queen has taken a rightful seat on her throne
Black Women
Do you hide behind your smile?
Shield grief behind effervescence?
Do you silence what you feel?
As daughters of slaves there is an ocean of pain running through our veins.
Our ancestral eyes have seen things that would cause nightmares today:
taken from our tribe, carried on ships, sold as chattel, beaten, worked to the bone, witnessing sanctioned murder again and again.
Our bodies remember the crack of the whip and penetrations against our will. Living lives that weren’t our own: the constant contraction of what we wanted, needed and felt being denied for someone else to prosper.
There is mourning and weeping on the inside still. And we wonder why we snap ... Why they call us angry.
Anger is the mildest symptom of us carrying these memories in our skin.
But we can’t live expecting others to understand, show pity or be sorry for what their forefathers have done and what continues.
The only thing we can control is ourselves. What we are being asked to do is witness our own pain.
Set some quiet time aside.
Let those African mothers and daughters carried across the seas sit by our side and weep, and weep and weep.
Before we demand others to listen to our agony, we must hear our own.
Be with that hurting part of ourselves and let her speak.
Because her suffering is not so much from the infliction of wounds, it’s that she was not allowed to cry.
She was not witnessed. No-one acknowledged her right to rage and express sorrow. No-one came to comfort her and let her know that her river of tears carries the seeds of humanity’s awakening.
Luckily, she has You now.
She is walking with you, inside you, waiting for you to let her rise. She is waiting for you to witness her grief and gnashing of teeth.
Hold space for her.
Just your radiance and your presence is enough. Let her tell you her stories, the horrors she has seen. Sit still and hold her hand. Remind her that you’ve got her.
You, mighty woman, are here now.
This is the healing she needs.
Faith
On the surface, I know it doesn’t look like much
If you compare to the riches others have, with effort, served up
A life divergent off the beaten track can look messy
Depending on the lens you use,
it might be hard to decipher the blessings
Man-made luxuries and titles have passed most artists and artistes by
And there are sometimes pangs of envy, we cannot lie
Keep an unyielding hope that taking the road less traveled will unfold
Its own tailored and perfect pot of gold
Painters, makers, musicians and dancers know what I’m saying
They’ve born the brunt of stern judgements traditional voices and their families have lain
“What are you doing with your life?”
They shout and scream
And though it sounds extreme
It’s from a place of sadness that they themselves have not pursued their own dreams
This generation of creatives is here to crack generational chains
To cease the hypnosis of going to a job you hate, living stunted, grunting and in pain
It’s time we chose our joy and what brings us pleasure
Release the bizarre idea that pain and suffering is a path to which we must tether
The era of slavery is now in the rear view mirror
Let’s free our minds from that distorted past and put on a tune radically different
There is something needed on this Earth in us revelling in making something from scratch
It’s like licking cake batter from the spoon of a muffin batch
Craft from pleasure
Channel in art from the heavens
We are raising the planet’s frequency together
Have faith in the future
Back yourself in the brave choice to do what you love
Ignore the critics, even if they are blood
Have faith that by following your bliss magic on the horizon will rise
Artists have special angels walking alongside
Hone your craft. Keep up that elevated inspired vibe
This is a wild horse, you are fated to ride
And via this wondrous exhilaration is how the whole of you will thrive