NEWS : Poets from the NORTH . EAST . WEST . SOUTH

Poetry Sydney and Macquarie University are thrilled to present N E W S : Poets from the North . East . West . South; a collaborative venture that celebrates the work of poets from the literary departments of four universities in Sydney and greater Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

The significance of the project on innovations hinges on the partnerships that pools the capacities and resources of Sydney's four institutions.  Rooted in mutual respect and collaborative openness, these partnerships has been roundly embraced by the curatorial team responsible for each of the compass events. 

This is the first of four events to be staged at a state-of-the-art live streaming venue, Knox.live, at the Knox Street Bar in Chippendale.  Representing the North of Sydney, with poets curated by Dr Michelle Hamadache, Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Literature and Language, Macquarie University.

Ambitious in scope, engaging in diverse media poetry from performance, video poetry and animation.  The events in equal parts will stage provocative and playful work that challenges and emotionally resonates.  

Each event will be held live at Knox.live and also live-streamed simultaneously.  Poetry pod-parties are encouraged to tune-in and share-in the live-stream across the country and internationally.

This project would not exist without the poets.  Above all we wish to acknowledge and commend all participating, who have championed the opportunity to showcase their work with rigor and ingenuity.

N E W S : Poets

David Adès is the author of Mapping the World, Afloat in Light and the chapbook Only the Questions Are Eternal. David won the Wirra Wirra Vineyards Short Story Prize 2005 and the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize 2014. Mapping the World was commended for the FAW Anne Elder Award 2008. David’s poems have been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and shortlisted for several other prizes in Australia, the U.S. and Israel. He is Convenor of the Poets’ Corner monthly poetry reading and now podcast series produced by WestWords.

Afeif Ismail is an award-winning multilingual Australian -Sudanese writer. He is an internationally published poet and playwright, with extracts from his work translated into English, German, Spanish and Swedish. His work in Australia has been recognized nationally by winning awards and nominations. In addition, his collections of essays, short stories and poetry in Arabic have had international critical acclaim.

Magdalena Ball is a novelist, poet, reviewer and interviewer who grew up on Lenape (Lenapehoking) land in the US, and currently lives and writes on Awabakal land. She is Managing Editor of Compulsive Reader, and her work has been widely published in literary journals such as Meanjin, Cordite, and Westerly, along with many anthologies, and is the author of a number of fiction and poetry books, most recently The Density of Compact Bone published by Ginninderra Press in 2021. A new poetry book, Bobish, is forthcoming in Feb 2023 from Puncher & Wattmann. 

Oscar Douglas is a performer and student from Gosford. He studies literature at Macquarie University, but is trying to move back toward performing after a long time of giving it up. His biggest influences are Mitski, Idles, David Bowie and The Mountain Goats. He mainly performs covers, but is hoping to start with original material in the future.”

Willo Drummond is a queer poet who lives and writes on Dharug and Gundungurra land. Her poetry can be found in Cordite Poetry Review, Australian Poetry Journal, The Canberra Times, anthologies published by Australian Poetry, Hunter Writers Centre, Recent Work Press, and elsewhere. Willo has been the recipient of a Career Development Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts (2020), runner-up in the Tom Collins Poetry Prize (2021), and shortlisted for the Val Vallis Award (2022). She teaches creative writing at Macquarie University and her debut poetry collection is forthcoming with Puncher and Wattmann in 2023.

Emily Duff is a budding writer from Sydney who finds her inspiration in new experiences and travel. She is a writer of poetry and short stories with a focus on romance and social-political themes. Her poem 'Six Progressive Responses to Feminism' was short-listed for the Whitlam Institute's What Matters? Writing Competition in 2019, and 'Killing the Monsters' was long-listed for the Macquarie University Future Leaders Prize in 2022.

Priyasha Janhavi is a Sydney-based poet and writer. An avid traveller, she traverses the world for artefacts of identity to preserve in her verse. She recently completed a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing at Macquarie University, and placed third for the 2022 Future Leaders Writing Prize.

Gareth Jenkin's first poetry book, Recipes for the Disaster, won the 2019 Anne Elder award. His poetry short-films have screened at festivals around the world and he exhibits text-based art and multimedia installations. In 2020 Gareth founded the archive and small press Apothecary Archive where he archives and publishes all manner of things experimental and creative. In 2021 he took over one of Australia’s longest running poetry publishers, Five Islands Press. For the last 16 years Gareth has been building The Atomic Book—an online digital archive of the work of Australia’s greatest Outlier artist, Anthony Mannix. His next book, The Inclination Compass, a multimedia poetic narrative will be out in July 2023 with Puncher and Wattmann.

Mark Mordue is a journalist, writer and poet. He’s the author of the biography Boy on Fire – The Young Nick Cave and the travel memoir Dastgah: Diary of a Headtrip. Over the last decade Mark has established a reputation for the immediacy of his poetry and image-making published online, weaving an existential map of his movements across Sydney’s Inner West and the south coast. His first poetry collection was called Darlinghurst Funeral Rites. His most recent was Via Us – Poems From Inside the Corona.

Kavita Nandan was born in New Delhi, grew up in Fiji and lives in Sydney. She tutors in Creative Writing at Macquarie University. Kavita’s book of poems, Return to what Remains, was released in October. She is also the author of Home after Dark, a novel about the search for home in the aftermath of the Fijian military coups of 1987. She is the editor of Stolen Worlds: Fiji-Indian Fragments, the co-editor of Unfinished Journeys: India File from Canberra and Writing the Pacific.

Alec James Wright is a Sydney based poet and screenwriter who lives on Darug land. He writes about themes of unity, uprising, modernity, and catharsis, finding inspiration for his work through ekphrasis and connecting with the natural world. In 2022, he was longlisted for the Future Leaders Writing Prize.

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Poetry Sydney nurtures innovation, discovery, and inspiration through the poetry of today. We present established, emerging and early career poets from diverse poetry practices.   For more information please visit our website: poetrysydney.org

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