Ink & Echo: Monthly Poetry Meetup

Welcome to Ink & Echo

Your monthly Saturday evening sanctuary for poetic exploration and expression! Half workshop and half reading, this two-hour-long event is designed to enrich your poetic craft while offering a stage for your voice to be heard.

Whether you’re a seasoned poet or picking up the pen for the first time, Ink & Echo offers a warm, inclusive space. What’s more? Each month features a unique theme, inspiring you to dive deeper into different facets of poetry.

The first hour of Ink & Echo is a workshop tailored to ignite your creative spirit. Guided by author and poet SoulReserve (author of Lakesong), you’ll dive into writing exercises, learn about different poetic forms, and explore techniques to make your words resonate.

This is a safe space to practice, make mistakes, and grow, all while enjoying the thrill of immediate and constructive feedback from your fellow poets.

The second hour opens the floor to you! Step up to the stage and share your freshly minted verses or read from your stash of treasured poems.

It’s an intimate, encouraging environment where every voice is celebrated. Each reading segment aligns with the month’s theme, offering a cohesive and engaging experience for readers and listeners alike.

Monthly Theme: July 2025

Our Rights Gone Wrong

Some violence is televised. Some is ratified. Some is buried in legislation, in contracts, in code, in silence. This session begins with genocide—undeniable, unfolding—and widens its lens: borders redrawn, species erased, rivers poisoned, soil turned to dust, voices digitised and disappeared. We write from the sites of sanctioned theft—of land, life, culture, belonging. These are not just poems. They are acts of resistance. Of mourning without permission. Of truth shouted where silence has been weaponised. From coral lost without grief to laws passed without witness, we name what was taken and what was never counted. Let the poem be evidence. Let it be reckoning. We gather what has been denied and drag it into the light. Let elegy become indictment. Let language refuse silence. Let the poem say: I see it. I will not look away. I will not forget.

Remember: If you have already written poems that fit the monthly theme, bring them along to share with the group.

Tickets

Tickets are pay-what-you-feel and start at $20. Book to RSVP and buy your tickets right here on Humanitix.

Location and Transport

The event will be held at Centre for Stories, Northbridge WA 6003. Centre for Stories is a wheelchair-accessible venue.

The Perth train station is a 10-minute walk from Centre for Stories. The closest Wilson parking is 2 minutes away at Northbridge Central, 8/6 Errichetti Place.

Photography Consent

This event may be photographed. By registering for a ticket, you confirm you are giving consent for any photos and recordings to be used for promotional materials and communications.

If you do not wish to be photographed, please contact Laksh at soulreserve@yahoo.com.

July Event Details

Date: 19th July 2025

Time: 5:00pm – 7:30pm

About the Facilitator

Lakshmi Kanchi (SoulReserve) is an emerging Indian-Australian poet on a mission—to make poetry accessible. Her writing anatomises the complex linkages between language, culture, and perception.

She is the author of “Lakesong”, her debut poetry collection, published by Centre for Stories. Lakshmi won the 2023 Ros Spencer Poetry Prize and 2021 Pocketry Prize for Unpublished Poets, and her works have been shortlisted for the Heroine’s Prize and Grieve Project.

Her poetry appears in ‘Australian Poetry Anthology,’ ‘Social Alternatives,’ ‘Portside Review,’ ‘Burrow Journal,’ ‘The Saltbush Review,’ and more. She was also the Inaugural Poet-in-Residence at The Wetlands Centre (2022-23) and Swan Writer-in-Residence at the Midland Courthouse (2024).