Poetry Sydney partners with the Australian Romanian Academy to present the Universal within the Local, a bilingual literary arts event that celebrates Romania's National Culture Day, and poet Mihai Eminescu.

This is the third reitration, which is exponential in providing the antipodean community an opportunity to connect and strengthen relations in Sydney, Australia and Romania. The Romanian Parliment introduced a National Culture Day in 2010, on the day of the birth of Eminescu, January 15th. The homage is emblematic of the universality of his Western European influences and his deep national connections.

The 19th century Romanian poet and writer, Eminescu is considered a romantic poet who wrote on a wide range of themes from nature to love, to deep social commentary. In the years after his death, his poems and writing continue to have a profound impact. This year's theme draws on

Daniel Ionita is the curator and President of the Australian Romanian Academy, who draws on Eminescu and Romanian poetry to challenge this year's participants with a universal theme of relisence in a polarised world.

"There is much in the world, today, to make many people, myself included – despondent, discouraged, ready to give up. Yet, what keeps us alive, and still productive and positive, is resilience. This has many sources and manifests itself in a multitude of conditions. It is not the aim of this event to exhaust the subject, nor would it be possible even if we tried."

Performances responding to this year's theme of 'Resilience' with more to be announced include:

Mona Zahra Attamimi is an Arab-Indonesian poet. She lived as a child in Jakarta, Washington DC and Manila, before settling in Sydney at age nine. Her poems have appeared in Southerly, Meanjin, Cordite, Westerly and local and overseas anthologies. She was the recipient of the Asia Link Arts 2019 Creative Exchange in Indonesia.	"I lived in different social and political contexts over the years: they all require resilience. Sure, the nature of it might change, but you cannot afford to let it slip.”
Angie Contini is an interdisciplinary artist and co-curator of The Salons, living on Gadigal Land. Instagram: @angiecontini @the.salons
Tug Dumbly is the pen and stage name of Geoff Forrester, a Nowra-born poet and performer who has lived in Sydney for decades. He has worked extensively in radio, venues and schools, and founded a couple of seminal poetry nights in Sydney. He has performed his work as resident-poet on ABC radio (Triple J, ABC 702), and released two spoken-word CDs through the ABC – Junk Culture Lullabies and Idiom Savant. His awards include the Banjo Paterson Prize for Comic Verse (twice), and Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup (thrice). His poems have appeared in many publications and he has been shortlisted numerous times for major awards. In 2020 he won the Borranga Poetry Prize, in 2022 he won the Woorilla Poetry Prize, and most recently he won the 2023 Bruce Dawe Poetry prize. His first poetry collection, Son Songs, came out in 2018 and his second collection was published last year, Tadpoems , through Flying Islands Books. He is also a singer, songwriter and musician who likes photography and nature, especially cicadas.
Charles Freyberg is a Kings Cross (Sydney) poet and performance artist. His book Dining at the Edge is published by Ginninderra Press. He alternates writing about inner city eccentrics and bush landscape – both threatened with destruction in our times. He performs his work widely around Sydney. His new book The Crumbling Mansion was released in 2023.	"Resilience enables me to be myself, who I am, and not having to pretend or hide!”
James Gering is an Australian diarist, poet and short story writer. He has received various international awards and prizes for his stories and poems and was the Australian Society of Authors Emerging Poet of the Year, 2018. His publication credits include Meanjin, Cordite, Rattle, The Rockvale Review, and San Pedro River Review. James lives in the Blue Mountains, where he climbs the cliffs and rappels the canyons in search of Rilke’s genius, Chekhov’s humility, and escape in general. His published poetry collections include Staying Whole While Breaking Apart, and Tickets to the Fall of Icarus.	“Climbing is my passion. As I hang on the cliff-face by my fingertips, I cannot help but think about what makes me wish to hang on.”
Daniel Ioniță (Emcee) is an Australian poet and translator of Romanian origin. He has had his own work published in both his native Romania as well as Australia and the USA. Daniel has been published in bilingual anthologies as a principal translator and editor of volumes such as Testament – 400 Years of Romanian Poetry, a comprehensive collection of Romanian poetry in English from its origins until today. This volume won the most important translation award in Romania, for representing Romanian literature into a foreign language, the Antoaneta Ralian Prize awarded by the International Bookfair Gaudeamus-Bucharest 2019. Other such anthologies include The Bessarabia of My Soul, a representation, also in English, of poets from the Republic of Moldova (for which Daniel was awarded the Poetry Prize of the Literature & Art magazine in the Republic of Moldova – 2018), and Return Ticket from Sydney to Bistrita, A Lyrical Carousel between the Antipodes. His latest collection, Pentimento, has recently been published by Interactive Publications earlier this year. Daniel is the current president of the Australian-Romanian Academy for Culture.
Anișoara Laura Mustețiu born in Timișoara (Romania) Anișoara lives in Sydney and holds a Bachelor of Creative Writing and Communication (Griffith Univeristy, Australia, 2017). Her poems were published in magazines such as Literary Confluences, Logos & Agape, Pro Diaspora. Anișoara published the volumes Travel in Time, A Life Story in Poems (2020) and Yarran, Stories from Australia, Children’s Book (2020). She is currently the producer and presenter of the Program: Emotions of Light for Radio ProDiaspora.	"The right choice between “head” and “heart” is not uniform; it depends on each circumstance. Sticking to the right choice requires not just wisdom, but also resilience."
Peter Miller-Robinson began writing poetry in his mid teens. By age twenty he had received an Australian Fellowship of Writers Young Writers Award and was published in Meanjin, the Canberra Times and Blast Monthly. He also had pieces broadcast on ABC radio and television. After turning his efforts to songwriting, Peter spent a decade as a professional musician. He has two awards from the Australian Songwriters Association. Compelled by a growing desire to live in daylight hours again, Peter took a degree in Social Work at the University of NSW. Subsequently he worked in Community Health. In recent years Peter has returned to songwriting and performing. He has released three albums of original music and is currently completing a fourth.
C Northey (the author name of Jo Corinna Northey) is a poet and visual artist committed to developing a philosophically informed creative arts practice, who lives and works on the Guringai land, north of Sydney. Jo holds a Masters of Creative Writing from University of Sydney and is currently completing an MA in Literature, Language and Culture with Freie Universität, Berlin, where she lived for three years. Jo has published poetry in the FU Review and various university journals, performed in poetry events in Berlin and Sydney.	"What we do creatively, is informed (consciously or not) by our world view. If not, it is disingenuous in one form or another."
Daniel Reynaud, Emeritus Professor (History), wrote several volumes on Australian participation in the First World War, such as Celuloid Anzacs, The Man Whom Anzacs Revered, Anzac Spirituality. Daniel is also a singer/songwriter, his discography including Noting is Wasted, and Humble Pie.
Emanuela Reynaud is a high school Teacher, singer, specialising as a food aesthetic specialist over the last few years.
George Roca is a Romanian writer living in Sydney, Australia. Roca is one of the most significant promoters of Romanian culture outside Romania, chief-editor to publications international literary publications, in print and online, such as Clipa, Observator Cultural, Literary Confluences. In poetry, he published the volumes Escape from the Virtual Space, Seeking the Island of Happiness and Coded Poems, being included in numerous anthologies. Among the many distinctions received, he was awarded by the Minister for Romanians Abroad for his contributions to Romanian culture overseas (2019).	“Above all else, to thine own self, be true…” (W.S.)
Paul Scully is a Sydney-based poet with two published collection, An Existential Grammar, Suture Lines, and The Fickle Pendulum. His work has been commended and short-listed in major Australian poetry prizes, including the ACU and Newcastle Poetry Prizes, and has been published in print and online journals in Australia, Ireland, the UK and USA.
Julian D Young is an avatar of the digital entity dvd2u. He can be found swinging around various devices in pursuit of coherence most of the time. He has done this ever since his friend told him he should buy a computer sometime last century. Video tags: @dvd2u #dvd2u

About the presenting organisations:

The Australian-Romanian Academy for culture and science aims to enhance cooperation between Australians and Romanians.

Poetry Sydney is an independent literary organisation committed to a presence for poetry our culture. We advocate the social benefits of poetry experiences to connect and strengthen creative thinking. For more information please visit our website: poetrysydney.org

Poetry Sydney gives respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation,
the traditional owners of the land we live, create, meet and work.

@poetrysydney
#poetrysydney

Contact the host of Universal within the Local 2025: Poetry of Resilience