AVANT GAGA #76: The Poetry Night at Sappho: Costi, Morley, Pepita, Keith

On the second Tuesday of October, the Poetry Night at Sappho will host AVANT GAGA #76, with guest poets Angela Costi, Sam Morley, Pepita, and Joel Keith, plus the usual open mic section. Entry is FREE, but due to its popularity the Poetry Night and Sappho Books have to implement a ticketing system, with doors opening between 6:00pm and 6:30pm for those registered. Please register to secure your attendance and avoid having to wait for those with tickets to enter first. If you register through Humanitix while queuing at the door, please show your ticket to the door person. Doors open from 6pm. Poetry starts close to 7:30pm. Sign up for the open mic is also at the door, starting between 6:00pm and 6:30pm—up to 10 readers can perform for up to 2 minutes each. Drinks and tapas can be purchased at the bar.

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ANGELA COSTI is a poet and writer with a background in social justice, law and community arts. The author of six poetry collections, including Honey & Salt (Five Islands Press, shortlisted Mary Gilmore Prize 2008) and The Heart of the Advocate (Liquid Amber Press, 2025). Her chapbook Adversarial Practice (Cordite Poetry Review) was commended in the Wesley Michel Wright Prize. She won the University of Canberra’s Health Poetry Prize 2024. In 1995, she received a grant from the National Languages Board to study Ancient Greek drama in Greece. She is known as Αγγελική Κωστή among the Cypriot diaspora, her ancestry.

SAM MORLEY has been published in various journals and has been shortlisted in the Montreal International Poetry Prize. He is the 2022 recipient of the Tina Kane Emergent Writer Award at the Mildura Writer’s Festival. His collections include Earshot (Puncher and Wattmann) and You Do You (out now through Upswell).

PEPITA is a poet and artist. Their first collection of poems Untitled [Notes for Blue] was published in 2022, and in 2025 they were awarded a Varuna Residential Fellowship.

JOEL KEITH is a writer and musician living on unceded Wurundjeri land. Her work has appeared in Island, Cordite, The Suburban Review, as a runner-up in Overland's Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2024, and elsewhere. They are the editor of Voiceworks.

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AVANT GAGA is supported by the Copyright Agency's Cultural Fund.

IMAGE: Leslie Martinez, detail of Filament Jetty, 2022. Fabric, paper scraps, charcoal, fine ballast, pumice and acrylic on canvas, 96 x 144 x 5 inches.