- 2 days ago
- 3 days ago
- 3 days ago
- 3 days ago
- 3 days ago
- Sep 18
Take me into the eyes and heart of someone in a moment in time that is not mine. Make me stand where they stood and know that what they felt is what we all feel and what makes us human. Make that moment come to life for me as a record I am able to be part of in the unbroken history of our emotions and understanding. There’s nothing purer than just that voice speaking straight to your mind, and only that voice, describing, moving, longing. That’s the place where my poetry comes from, what drives it and brings it to life. I want you to hear the crickets, as my voice is your voice rising from the page, and be there in the moments where I have seen life cross paths with the universe- where I have seen a twig whirring in a cobweb in the bush, alone, in the places beyond people, in the droning hum of summer heat. You and I, carried to that point in the human timeline, to a place that is never lost, to one we can always find and be alone with, and where we are connected to everything.
Poetry Australia is a non-profit organisation I have set up to support and promote poetry from non-traditional places. Rhythmic poetry, in the form of RAP and hip-hop are with us all the time, but poetry as a written form in Australia doesn't have a place or presence with the people. That's because it is not owned by the people. The boards of the writer's association and poetry organisations are filled with academics and other who live in an echo chamber and who either write for their kind or support a feedback loop.
Poetry Australia plans to seek grants to reach out to diverse communities and ordinary people and to encourage them to write poetry by offering prize money for their work and distribution through a free quarterly journal.
I won the poetry prize for my school in my last two years of high-school and, as a young poet, that meant a lot in terms of validation and encouragement for me to go on. Poetry Australia will support all poets who live and breathe the real world and especially young poets, poet who speak languages other than English, poets across the gender spectrum and from First Nation and multicultural backgrounds, in Australia.