AVANT GAGA #77: The Poetry Night at Sappho: Crispin, Musgrave, Garrido-Salgado, Swain

On the second Tuesday of November, the Poetry Night at Sappho will host AVANT GAGA #77, which will include the launch of Judith Nangala Crispin's new book The Dingo's Noctuary, with readings by Judith Nangala Crispin, David Musgrave (who will launch Judith's book), Juan Garrido and Gillian Swain, 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 6-6:30pm. Please register to secure your attendance and avoid having to wait for those with tickets to enter first. There will be places from 7:30pm for those without tickets. Please don't book tickets for anyone not planning to come, as seats are limited.

Sign up for the open mic is also at the door, starting between 6-6:30pm—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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JUDITH NANGALA CRISPIN is an acclaimed poet, visual artist, motorcyclist and volunteer firefighter, living on unceded Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country near Braidwood on the NSW Southern Tablelands. Her poetry has won the Blake Prize, been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and been shortlisted for many awards including the Peter Porter Prize. Her visual art has won her residencies, awards, and wide acclaim, here and overseas. Judith is a descendant of Bpangerang people from the Murray River and acknowledges heritage from Scotland, Ireland, France, Mali, Senegal and the Ivory Coast. She spends part of each year living and working with the Warlpiri, her adopted people, in the Northern Tanami Desert. She has published two collections of poetry, The Myrrh-Bearers and The Lumen Seed, with her third book The Dingo's Noctuary (Puncher & Wattmann 2025) being launched at this event. For more info about this special book of poetry and artworks, click here.

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A melancholy figure on the lonely windswept streets of Newcastle, DAVID MUSGRAVE occasionally emerges from his habitual funk to write books of poems, of which The Kool-Aid Dispenser is his tenth. Often he claims to be wandering to and from the University of Newcastle, where he teaches creative writing. At other times he desultorily discharges his duties at the independent publishing house Puncher & Wattmann, which he founded in 2003. In his spare time he translates classical Chinese poetry and ferries his son around to his (Jingxi’s, that is) many interesting extra-curricular activities, deriving further poems from his son’s perceptive observations.

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JUAN GARRIDO SALGADO is a former political prisoner under Pinochet's dictatorship. He has published ten books of poetry in Australia and Chile. His work has been translated into several languages. He has translated works by Australian and Aboriginal poets into Spanish. His books have been published by Puncher & Wattmann. His latest book: Feathes of a feathered bird/ Plumas de un pájaro desplumado (July 2025). It was presented at the International Literature Festival in Honduras, TEGUS-Si Canta, as well as to the  Literature event in Santiago, Chile. Juan received a grant from Creative Australia to participate in these events. MAGO Editores (Chile) will publish a new collection of his poems: De Donde soy... Cuando el viento enmudece mis pasos (2025).

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GILLIAN SWAIN is a poet based in the Hunter region on Wonnarua land who grew up on Awabakal land at Lake Macquarie. She is involved in running various poetry events including Poetry at the Pub (Newcastle) and established the popular Culture Club: Poets Society (Maitland). Gillian has run various poetry workshops across all age groups for many organisations. She has appeared at writers festivals in panels and readings and was the Co-Director and Poetry Curator of the writers festival ‘IF Maitland’ in 2020 through 2022. Gillian’s poetry appears in various journals and anthologies including the Australian Poetry Anthology (vol 10, 2023), Poetry for the Planet: An Anthology of Imagined Futures (2021, Littoria Press), What we Carry: poetry on childbearing (2021, Recent Works Press), Burrow (Old Water Rat Publishing), Live Encounters magazine, and others. Her debut poetry collection is My Skin its own Sky (Flying Islands Press, 2019) following her chapbook Sang Up (Picaro Press, 2001).

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

IMAGE: Judith Nangala Crispin, Three ceremony ladies, Molly, Rosie & Lily, return as ball lightning, in a thunderhead over Mt Hardy, on the rain dreaming songline, in Warlpiri Country, 2025 (Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verse, chemigram, painting. Three storm-killed superb fairy-wrens, Vegemite, tea, watercolours, ball-bearings, feathers and wax on fibre paper. Exposed 16 hours in rainfall, beneath a Perspex box.).