NOTICE OF PEN Perth AGM 2025
3.30-4.30 pm (Saturday) 23 August 2025
Centre for Stories, 100 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge

The 2025 Annual General Meeting of PEN Perth will be held at 3.30 pm on Saturday 23 August 2025 at the Centre for Stories, 100 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge; and will be followed by a poetry reading, titled ‘We Belong Here’. All members and prospective members are welcome but only members can vote. Go to PEN Perth website to find the AGM agenda and reports.

POETRY READING: WE BELONG HERE (4.30-5.30 pm)

PEN Perth invites you to an evocative evening of poetry readings centred around the theme We Belong Here: Defiant Declarations of Presence in Spaces that Exclude. Featuring a stellar lineup of local poets—Vivienne Glance and Afeif Ismail, Bianca Greyvenstein, Arunima Nair, and Sirajul Islam (joining live via Teams from a refugee camp in Bangladesh)—this event speaks boldly to resilience, identity and creative resistance.

From Rohingya poet Sirajul’s powerful voice for the voiceless, to Afeif and Vivienne’s transcreated works that bridge language and culture, to Bianca’s diasporic musings and Arunima’s myth-infused memory poems, each artist brings a distinct, urgent declaration of presence. The session will be warmly moderated by Lakshmi Kanchi, a passionate advocate for making poetry accessible.

Come, witness language wielded as truth, poetry as protest, and story as sanctuary.

Lakshmi Kanchi, pen name SoulReserve, is an emerging Indian–Australian poet on a mission — to make poetry accessible. She is the Chair of WA Poets Inc. and a Centre for Stories Fellow. Lakshmi's debut poetry collection, Lakesong, was published by Centre for Stories (WA) in collaboration with Red River Press (New Delhi). Her poetry explores love and its tumultuousness, fantasy and zest in nature, and allegories that provoke thought and evoke tender feelings. Her writing anatomises the complex linkages between language, culture, history and perception.

Lakshmi won the 2023 Ros Spencer Poetry Prize and the 2021 Pocketry Prize for Unpublished Poets. Her works have been shortlisted for the Heroine’s Prize 2024, Grieve Project 2024, and SCWC Poetry Prize 2023 and 2022. Her poetry has been featured in various literary publications including, but not limited to, Australian Poetry Anthology, Social Alternatives, Portside Review, Burrow Journal and The Saltbush Review. She was the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at The Wetlands Centre (2022–23) and Writer-in-Residence at the Midland Courthouse (2024).

Lakshmi will be exploring new territory with her upcoming visual poetry exhibition LAND ((WORD)) JOURNEY at the Midland Junction Arts Centre, where she will present works in collaboration with four other artists this May/June/July.

Poetry Readings at the PEN Perth AGM will feature Vivienne Glance and Afeif Ismail, Bianca Nadja, Arunima Nair, and Sirajul Islam (via Teams). We’re working with a loose theme: “We Belong Here–Defiant Declarations of Presence in Spaces that Exclude.”

Sirajul Islam
“I write poetry to be a voice for the voiceless, to transform pain into power, to replace tears with smiles and to daringly truth to power.” — Sirajul Islam
Sirajul Islam considers himself a proud Rohingya. He is a poet, writer and human rights activist. He was born in Arakan State, Myanmar. In 2017, he fled to Bangladesh to escape the genocide deliberately borne by the bloodthirsty military of Myanmar. In his childhood, before he became a refugee, his dream was to be a doctor. But when his schooling stopped and he was restricted from pursuing further studies, he swapped his dream for writing and has been writing ever since. So far, he has published two collections of poetry, “If I were a Bird: A Voice of Resilience” and “Still I Smile: A Voice for the Voiceless” and is now working on his third volume.

Co-transcreators Afeif Ismail and Vivienne Glance
Transcreation is an essential element of Afeif’s and Vivienne’s writing partnership. Together they pioneered this cross-cultural creative process where Afeif ‘s Arabic text is transformed into a new rich, cohesive and poetic or dramatic work in English. Their co-transcreated poetry has been published in Afeif’s collections: Orphaned Birds, Mum This World Lies to Us! and Naked Inside the Wolves’ Den. They have been working together since 2004 and were co-commissioned by Barking Gecko Theatre to work on his script of The African Magician (nominated Australian Writers Guild Award 2010).
Other theatre work includes The Son of the Sun (Playwriting Australia’s National Script Workshop, 2008), Shrouds or the Dead(WA Theatre Development Award, 2010), Son of the Nile (Nexus Theatre, Murdoch University, WA, 2012), Unsuitable Hats (Write Local Play Global, Kennedy Arts Centre, Washington DC, 2013), Eureka! (International Theater Festival Schaxpir, Austria, 2013), 3 Seeds (Blue Room Theatre, 2014) and Circles of Return (Theatre 459, Perth, 2016).

Bianca Greyvenstein is a Woman in STEM Education by day, and a chaotic creative by night. She is a Third Culture Kid who was raised across four countries and currently calls Perth home. In her spare time, she writes under “Inked by Binx” and runs “Berry Cosy Pages”, her digital template store where she helps her fellow bookworms and teachers organise their berry cosy lives. She loves creating with head, heart, and hands and hopes to inspire others to live more holistically too.

Arunima Nair is a poet, photographer, and artist—an archivist of family stories and guardian of fading photographs - a mother, a feminist, an animal lover, and nature worshipping tree hugger. Fearless yet riddled with quiet storms, she is a knotted skein of vibrant yarn—still in the process of untangling herself, thread by thread. Her poetry is rooted in memory and mythology, nourished by the scent of food, the rhythm of nature, and the echoes of stories passed down. Through her words, she journeys inward to uncover herself—and, in that unravelling, begins to glimpse the vast, intricate weave of the world beyond.
Ro Hefzu is a Rohingya poet and advocate currently residing in the world's largest refugee camp in Bangladesh. A survivor of brutal persecution in Myanmar, Ro Hefzu channels lived experiences of genocide, displacement, and resistance into powerful verses. Ro Hefzu believes that poetry serves as both a vital mirror reflecting human struggle and hope, and a potent tool in the fight for justice for the persecuted minorities like the Rohingya and Palestinians.
Ro Hefzu's poem on the theme of “Resilience, Identity and Home" has secured a recognition, including first place in a March 2025 international poetry competition organised by the Rohingya Advancement Committee, selected from hundreds of global submissions. Many of his poems have been published on social media platforms like The Art Garden Rohingya. Currently, Ro Hefzu is finalising his debut poetry collection for global publication.
Alongside his writing, Ro Hefzu is an undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration at the University of the People online. Ro Hefzu believes that poetry is "the alchemy of the quicksilver pulse of emotions and a shadow-stitched tapestry of the soul".

Contact the host of PEN Perth Annual General Meeting 2025 and poetry reading: We belong here

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