what's on

1, 3. Books in the Brett Whiteley Studio
2. Brett Whiteley c1971-72. Greg Weight, photographer 

Poets Union poetry readings held at the Brett Whiteley Studio
2-3:30pm on the fourth Sunday of the month

Sunday 27 July

• Pi O
  Considered to be the first poet to use the ocker and migrant dialect, Melbourne based Pi O writes of inner city life, the workplace, love and politics with a focus on aural and oral performance poetry. A founder of the Poets Union, he has performed internationally in the United States, Columbia and Berlin. Big Numbers, new and selected poems is his most recent book, published by Collected Effort Press in 2008. Eagerly anticipated, Pi O is set to attract numbers.

Sunday 24 August

Poems in conversation
Many poems from different poets are in conversation with each other – on the same topic, either saying similar things or diametrically opposed. Sometimes this is conscious, but more frequently, it's a matter of interconnected preoccupations. Poems have something to say to each other and the end result is multi-faceted and cumulative – sometimes serious, sometimes delightfully humorous. As part of the Australian Poetry Festival we are proud to present Poems in conversation, featuring:

• Margaret Bradstock
  Margaret Bradstock is a Sydney poet, editor and critic. She is an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of NSW, a long-term committee member of Poets Union and co-editor of Five Bells. She has published four collections of poetry, the most recent being The Pomelo Tree (Ginninderra, 2001), which won the Wesley Michel Wright Prize, and Coast (Ginninderra, 2005). Margaret was Asialink Writer-in-residence at Peking University, Beijing in 2003.
• Joanne Burns
  Joanne is a Sydney poet whose most recent book, Footnotes of a hammock (Five Islands, 2004), was joint winner of the 2005 Judith Wright Poetry Prize for a published collection by an Australian poet. She is a current recipient of an Australia Council Writing Grant. A new collection of her poetry, An illustrated history of dairies, was published by Giramondo Press in 2007.
• Kerry Leves
  Kerry is a poet, critic and an adult education teacher. He lives in the Blue Mountains and is a poetry reviewer for Overland. Kerry’s most recent poetry collection is A Shrine to Lata Mangeshkar (Puncher & Wattman, 2008).
• David Musgrave
  David is a Sydney-based poet and publisher. He is the author of two books of poetry, To Thalia (Puncher and Wattmann, 2004) and On Reflection (Interactive, 2005). He has also written a chapbook, Watermark (Picaro, 2006). In 2008, he won the Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize. His first novel is to be published later this year.
• Jenni Nixo
  Jenni is a poet and performer whose work has appeared in numerous journals and small press anthologies including Southerly, Overland, Blue Dog, Breaking Free, Open Boat: Barbed Wire Sky and Slam the Body Politik (synaptic graffiti collective). She published Café Boogie in 2004 (CD audio/text, Interactive, 2005).
• Louise Wakeling
  Louise is a Sydney poet and teacher. Her second collection of poetry, Medium security, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2002 and she was the recipient of a Department of Education poetry research award in May 2007. Her third poetry collection, Paragliding in a war zone, is forthcoming from Puncher & Wattmann in 2008.

Sunday 28 September

Queensland touring poets

• Helen Avery
  Helen manages her family property near Longreach Western Queensland where she has lived for 25 years. Her life has been intimately involved with the Australian outback landscape. Her most recent book of poetry, Seduced by Sky, was published by Nardoo Publishing in 2005.
• Ross Clark
  Ross writes poetry as well as Haiku, a form of traditional Japanese poetry. He has published seven volumes of poetry, the most recent being Salt Flung into the Sky Ginninderra, 2007) and two chapbooks, including At the Turn of the Seasons (Sweet Water, 2003). He has presented and performed in city and rural Australia, Japan and central Texas.
• Nathan Shepherdson
  Nathan has won the Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize twice (2004, 2006), the 2005 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Award, the 2006 Newcastle Poetry Prize and the 2006 Arts Queensland Val Vallis Award. His first book, Sweeping the Light Back into the Mirror, was published in 2006 by UQP. His chapbook, What marian drew never told me about light, was published by Small Change Press earlier this year. He lives at the Glass House Mountains in Queensland.

Sunday 26 October

• Benito Di Fonzo
  A journalist, playwright and poet, Benito has written for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. Several of his plays have been performed at The Sydney Opera House. Benito is a cofounder of Bardflys, an organisation that has fostered poetry and spokenword to a Sydney audience for over a decade. Satire that’s stronger than dirt.

Sunday 23 November

• David Reiter
  Director of Interactive Publications - a print and digital publisher in Brisbane - David combines poetry and fiction writing with technology in innovative ways. He has published 12 books and has recently been focusing on scriptwriting and visual media. Truncated and provocative, his narratives will transform you.

Instrumentation provided by Ashley Chatto & Marc Vandoornan on classical guitar

FREE ENTRY
featured guest poet and open mic
For enquiries, please contact Angela Stretch on 0434 898 578