Poetry Month Gala

Evelyn Araluen is a Goorie and Koori poet, researcher, and co-editor of Overland Literary Journal.

A leading figure in the Native American literary renaissance that emerged in the 1960s, Simon Ortiz has published many books of poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction.

In general, his writing is concerned with modern man’s alienation from others, from himself, and from his environment—urging humanity to reconnect the wisdom of ancestral spirits and with Mother Earth. His poetry collections include Going for the Rain (1976), A Good Journey (1977), From Sand Creek (1982), Woven Stone (1992), After and Before the Lightning (1994), and Out There Somewhere (2002).

π.O. is a legendary figure in the Australian poetry scene, born and bred in Fitzroy, the great chronicler of Melbourne and its culture and migrations, a highly disciplined anarchist who worked as a draughtsman for forty years to support his art.

He is currently editor of the experimental magazine Unusual Work. He is a pioneer of performance poetry in Australia and the author of many collections, including Panash, Fitzroy Poems, Big Numbers: New and Selected Poems, and the two epic works 24 Hours and Fitzroy: The Biography. His book Heide with Giramondo won the Judith Wright Calanthe Award in 2020, and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry in the same year. 

Walter Kadiki is a master of weaving signed poetry and visual vernacular into poetic performance. He is known for his profound and engaging signed poetry and storytelling that bridges cultures and is accessible to deaf and hearing audiences.

He has delivered workshops for young people across Australia in Deaf Slam Poetry, has worked with community groups to create the poems such as Butterfly Hands, which was performed at Federation Square in Melbourne, and in Geelong. Kadiki has performed his signed poetry at the Melbourne Fringe Festival , Melbourne 2005 Deaflympics - Celebration of a possibility projection, Canberra Parliament and various events across Australia. 

In 2017, Walter Kadiki received an invitation to collaborate and perform with NOW-ID, an interdisciplinary dance and design company based in the US. Walter’s powerful poetry was the impetus and focus for the new work, A Tonal Caress. The original contemporary dance-based work was performed at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in the USA in July 2018.

After being groomed and sexually assaulted by her maths teacher when she was just 15 years old, Grace Tame has spent the last 10 years turning her traumatic experience into being an advocate for survivors of child sexual assault and a leader of positive change.

Recognising the injustice of Tasmania’s gag order that prevented survivors from self-identifying publicly, Grace spent several months campaigning with #LetHerSpeak campaign. In 2019, she finally won the court order to speak out under her own name. 

Grace is the 2021 Australian of the Year.

Now 26 and based in Hobart, Grace is dedicated to eradicating child sexual assault in Australia, and supporting the survivors of child sexual assault.

Her focus is around enabling survivors to tell their stories without shame, educating the public around the process and lasting effects of grooming and working with policy and decision makers to ensure we have a federal system that supports the survivors, not just perpertrators.

She is also a passionate yoga teacher, visual artist, and champion long-distance runner, having won the 2020 Ross Marathon in a female course record time of 2:59:31.

An open book about her experience, but even more passionate about preventing this from happening to other children, Grace speaks from the heart and will have her audience simultaneously inspired and in tears.

She is a regular keynote speaker, media guest and advocacy commentator.

David Stavanger is an Australian poet, performer, cultural producer, editor and lapsed psychologist. His first full-length poetry collection The Special (UQP) was awarded the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and the Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. David is the co-editor of  SOLID AIR: Collected Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word (UQP) and his latest collection Case Notes (UWAP) won the 2021 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry. 

These days he lives between the stage and the page.

Ren Alessandra is in her age of expansion. As the 2020 Australian Poetry Slam Champion, she holds her endeavour close. Poet and educator based in Melbourne, Ren runs her own venture, Wordcraft, blending her vocations to help writers overcome their blocks and develop their craft.

Hosting a monthly spoken word event, workshops and many creations to come, Wordcraft is growing, as is her work. Blueprint Body, her first collection, has been born in a chapbook selection. The taster of the bigger collection explores Ren’s lived experience of body shame through a rebuilding of the self. Her work explores femininity, identity and love in all its colours.

Izzy Roberts-Orr is a poet and arts worker based on Wurundjeri Country in regional Victoria. Her debut collection, Raw Salt (Vagabond, 2024) was the recipient of a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship, Marten Bequest ...