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Victorian Poetry Month Gala 2022

When

Event Status

At the second annual Victorian Poetry Month Gala, discover new work from passionate poets who are also widely known for their music, memoir, fiction, performance and polemic prowess.

Watch the live-stream

About

A blazing line-up of talent comes together for the second annual Poetry Month Gala, upending traditional expectations of poetry with their groundbreaking work across a range of creative expressions.

Launched in 2021 by Red Room Poetry, Poetry Month aims to increase access, awareness and visibility of poetry in all its forms and for all audiences.

At this special event, discover new work from passionate poets who are also widely known for their music, memoir, fiction, performance and polemic prowess, including Anthea Yang, Laniyuk, Bebe Backhouse, Joelistics, Maria Takolander (now appearing via video link), Mia Nie and Jonathan Dunk, plus a special tribute to Archie Roach.

This event will also be live-streamed, viewable on this page from 6.30pm on Thursday 4 August.

The bookseller for this event is Hares & Hyenas

Presented in partnership with Red Room Poetry

Accessibility

Auslan Interpreted

Featuring

Joelistics

Joelistics’ great gift is the crafting of common language into evocative turns of phrase. As a rapper, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, actor and advocate for diversity, he is recognised as a unique voice in the Australian music scene from his early seminal work with alt rap group TZU ... Read more

Bebe Backhouse

A descendant of the Bardi Jawi people of the Kimberley region of north-Western Australia, Bebe Backhouse is a writer and artistic leader who’s called Narrm home for ten years. Beginning his creative practice as a classical pianist and composer, Bebe later made a name for himself as a producer and ... Read more

Jonathan Dunk

Jonathan Dunk is the co-editor of Overland literary journal, and the recipient of the AD Hope prize and the Dal Stivens award.

Laniyuk

Laniyuk is a Larrakia, Kungarakan, Gurindji and French writer and performer. She has been published nationally and internationally in poetry collections such as Solid Air (2019) and Fire Front (2020), in the 2022 speculative fiction anthologies Unlimited Futures and This All Come Back Now as well as... Read more

Mia Nie

Mia Nie is a Chinese-Australian comic artist, zine-maker, and award-nominated ex-poet. She has been published in Pencilled In, The Suburban Review, Comic Sans Journal, Strange Horizons, and Castles in the Sky. Her work explores the complexities, contradictions, and deeply felt desires of transgender... Read more

Maria Takolander

Maria Takolander was born in Melbourne in 1973 to Finnish parents. She is the author of three previous poetry collections, including Ghostly Subjects (Salt, 2009), which was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. Her poetry appeared regularly in The Best Australian Poems and The Bes... Read more

Izzy Roberts-Orr

Izzy Roberts-Orr is a poet, writer, broadcaster and arts worker based on Taungurung Country, and Digital Producer at Red Room Poetry. Izzy is a 2020-2021 recipient of the Australia Council Marten Bequest Scholarship for Poetry, and is currently completing a book of elegiac poetry, Raw Salt. ... Read more

Anthea Yang

Anthea Yang is a writer and poet living on unceded Wurundjeri land. Her writing has appeared in Going Down Swinging, Kill Your Darlings, Mascara Literary Review and the HEIDE+Rabbit House of Ideas: Modern Women anthology, among others. She was longlisted for the 2021 Kuracca Prize for Australian Lit... Read more

Location

The Wheeler Centre and wheelercentre.com

176 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

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The Wheeler Centre acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Centre stands. We acknowledge and pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their Elders, past and present, as the custodians of the world’s oldest continuous living culture.