I‘m stoked to be a part of Red Room Poetry Month 2023 as a 30in30 poet. Poetry Month (August 1–31) is a national celebration of Australian poetry. It aims to increase access, awareness and visibility of poetry in all its forms and for all audiences.

Thanks to all at Red Room, especially David Stavanger, who commissioned my 30in30 poem ‘Sea Grape (A Decaying-Flourishing Sestina)’. This one‘s with a nod to Lawrence Schimel, who invented the Decaying Sestina — here’s his amazing ‘Deleting Names (A Decaying Sestina)’.

To read the fab full Poetry Month Program click here.

I’ve a new poem, ‘The record player’, in Island 168 along with poems by Willo Drummond, Jennifer Compton, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Amy Crutchfield, Isi Unikowski, Michael Farrell, Graeme Miles, Svetlana Sterlin and Suzi Mezei. My poem’s with a nod to Marianne Moore’s ‘The Fish’, Cocteau Twins’ ‘Frou-frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires’ and The Cure’s ‘Six Different Ways’. Thanks to all at Island, especially poetry editor Kate Middleton. You can read about/order the issue here. 

Brilliant poet and close friend Matt Hetherington and I co-wrote ‘extract absism’ for Rabbit COLLABORATIONS. Thanks to Jess Wilkinson and Jacqui Malins for including it in this issue which features poetic cooperations by Anna Jacobson and Pascalle Burton, Caren Florence and Melinda Smith, Miriam Wei Wei Lo and Jenny Potts Barr, Pooja Mittal Biswah and Joseph Jude, Quinn Eades and Francesca Rendle-Short and many more. You can order a copy here.

And thanks to Nat O’Reilly for including my poem ‘Duplex’ in Antipodes 35 which features beauties by David Adès, Joel Deane, Rosanne E. Licari, Felicity Plunkett, Brendan Ryan, Feana Tu’akoi and Ouyang Yu, among others. You can read the issue here.

Thanks to Nadia Rhook and Caitlin Maling for including my poem ‘Cranes’ — a terse-set, a form I invented; ‘terse-set’ is my pun on ‘tercet’ — in Cordite NO THEME 12. You can read the full issue, with poems by Manisha Anjali, Bron Bateman, Michelle Cahill, Luoyang Chen, Eileen Chong, Lisa Collyer, Liam Ferney, Jill Jones, Jo Langdon, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, KA Rees, Alicia Sometimes, Andrew Sutherland, Anders Villani, Becca Wang and many more, here.

And thanks to Angela Gardner and Carmen Keates for including three poems first published in Like to the Lark in foam:e Issue 20 which features beauties by Steph Amir, Steve Brock, Luoyang Chen, Emilie Collyer, Jane Downing, Jill Jones, Ella Kurz, Jo Langdon, Alyson Miller, Sam Morley, Isabella G. Mead, Terry Nguyen, Keith Nunes, Damen O’Brien, Kristian Radford, Caroline Reid, Nathan Shepherdson, Emma Simington, Beth Spencer, Jen Webb, Sean West and Janet Jiahui Wu.

QPF2023 is just around the corner — huzzah!

Can’t wait to catch up with friends and family at Opening Night:
Thursday April 20
7:00pm
Auditorium 2
State Library of Queensland
A free event, but bookings are required.

And I’m really looking forward to listening/talking/reading from my latest collection, Like to the Lark (Upswell Publishing, 2023), at these events:

Playing With Poetry with Dan Hogan and Huda the Goddess, hosted by Scott-Patrick Mitchell.
Friday April 21
12:30–1:30pm
Auditorium 2
State Library of Queensland.
Book your tickets here.

The Reading Room — Evenings with Pooja Mittal Biswas and Dan Hogan.
Friday April 21
5:30–6:30pm
Auditorium 2
State Library of Queensland.
Book your tickets here.

The QPF2023 line-up includes Cassandra Atherton, Jarad Bruinstroop, Pascalle Burton, Shastra Deo, Jane Frank, Angela Gardner, Rebecca Jessen, Kent MacCarter, Janaka Malwatta, Nathan Shepherdson, Anders Villani, Samuel Watson and Jessica Wilkinson. Read about all the poets and performers here.

Really lovely to wake, yesterday, to Maggie Ball’s generous, moving, eloquent review of Like to the Lark. (Maggie’s latest collection Bobish is out now with Puncher & Wattmann.)

Here’s a excerpt:

‘Like to the Lark is a fantastic primer for anyone looking to learn more about poetic forms such as sonnets, sestinas, tritinas, duplexes, pantoums, ghazals, prose poems and villanelles. However, the forms never feel constrained or overt. They feel integral, fresh and natural to the work. In many ways the book charts a coming of age: growing up gay in a small Tasmanian town, memories of the past, rape, drug use, love and loss mingling with climate anxiety, recovery and emotional growth. There is such exuberance in these poems—delight in language and what it’s capable of, and subversive trickery that is somehow both charmingly naughty and reverent at the same time. Like to the Lark is a rich and pleasurable book, each poem revealing its many layers on re-reading.’

Thanks to Maggie and to Compulsive Reader, where the review appeared. .

You can order Like to the Lark here.

Delighted to announce Like to the Lark and Willo Drummond’s stunning debut poetry collection Moon Wrasse (Puncher & Wattmann) will be launched on Thursday 16th March at Marrickville Pavilion by award-winning poet and critic (and close friend) Felicity Plunkett, whose most recent collection is A Kinder Sea (UQP, 2020).

Really looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and reading some of these poems!

Tickets are free, but bookings are essential.

I loved talking with the ever-generous Rob McDonald about Like to the Lark (out now with Upswell Publishing), identity and writing, how to approach a poem and much more more for the Queer Writes Sessions Podcast.

You can catch the episode on SoundCloud.

Thanks again to Rob, Dani Vee, Jo Canham and Blarney Books.

Thanks to Prue Gibson and Amanda Lucas-Frith for including my poem ‘Wuray’ in The Herbarium Tales, a special issue of Plumwood Mountain, alongside beauties by Samuel Wagan Watson, Felicity Plunkett, Dakota Feirer, Michelle Cahill and Luke Patterson. This project ‘seeks to find out how plant-human connections have changed and asks what relevance herbarium collections hold in a changing world.’

You can read ‘Wuray’ here and the full issue here.

I’ve a duplex about the emu bush from its own point of view in Mascara Literary Review Issue 28 (thanks to eds Michelle Cahill, Anthea Yang, Monique Nair) and another, about trauma, The Tempest and transformation (tw: rape), in Antipodes 35.1 (thanks to ed Nathanael O’Reilly). 

Both poems also appear in Like to the Lark, out soon with Upswell Publishing. You can pre-order a copy here.