Poets' Corner

Poets' Corner is WestWords' monthly encounter with celebrated Australian poets, curated by David Ades.

Each month a poet is invited to read and talk about their poetry on a theme of the poet's choice.

Alex Skovron was born in Poland, lived briefly in Israel, and emigrated to Australia aged nearly ten. His family settled in Sydney, where he grew up and completed his studies. From the early 1970s he worked as an editor for book publishers in Sydney and (after 1980) Melbourne. His poetry has appeared widely in Australia and overseas, and he has received a number of major awards for his work. The most recent of his six poetry collections, Towards the Equator: New & Selected Poems (2014), was shortlisted in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. The Attic, a selection of his poetry translated into French, was published in 2013, and a bilingual volume of Chinese translations, Water Music, in 2017. Alex’s poetry has also been translated into Dutch, Macedonian, Polish and Spanish. His collection of short stories The Man who Took to his Bed (2017), and his novella The Poet (2005), have been published in Czech translations. The numerous public readings he has given have included appearances in China, Serbia, India, Ireland, Macedonia, Portugal, and on Norfolk Island. His next collection of poems, Letters from the Periphery, is forthcoming in 2021.

Publications:

Poetry

The Rearrangement (1988)

Sleeve Notes (1992)

Infinite City: 100 Sonnetinas (1999)

Chess and other poems (chapbook, 2002)

The Man and the Map (2003)

Autographs: 56 poems in prose (2008)

Towards the Equator: New & Selected Poems (2014)

Fiction

The Poet: a novella (2005)

The Man who Took to his Bed (stories, 2017)

In translation

The Attic (French bilingual: trans. Jacques Rancourt, 2013)

Básník: novela (Czech: trans. J. Tomáš and H. Tomková, 2014)

Water Music (Chinese bilingual: trans. Xu Daozhi, 2017)

Muž, který ulehl do své postele (Czech: trans. J. Tomáš and H. Tomková, 2019)

Audio

Towards the Equator (CD: author reading from his poetry, 2019)

As Editor

The Concise Encyclopaedia of Australia (General Editor, 1979)

Singing for All He’s Worth (co-editor, 2011)

You can purchase Alex Skovron's poetry collections here:

https://puncherandwattmann.com/author...​

______

ABOUT WESTWORDS

WestWords is a literature organisation whose mission is to provide support and resources for the writers, poets, artists, storytellers and creators of Western Sydney, in the form of events, workshops, residencies, school visits, fellowships, groups, consultations and mentorships.

For more information, visit our website at https://www.westwords.com.au/​

WestWords is proudly supported by:

* CREATE NSW –Arts, Screen & Culture

* COPYRIGHT AGENCY Cultural Fund

* The City of Parramatta

* Blacktown City Council

* Campbelltown City Council

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

Poets' Corner is WestWords' monthly encounter with celebrated Australian poets, curated by David Ades.

Each month a poet is invited to read and talk about their poetry on a theme of the poet's choice.

Paul Hetherington is a distinguished Australian poet. He has published 15 full-length collections of poetry and prose poetry, including the co-authored epistolary prose poetry sequence, Fugitive Letters (2020) and Typewriter and Manuscript (Life Before Man, 2020), along with 11 poetry chapbooks.

He has won or been nominated for more than 30 national and international awards and competitions. In 2014 Six Different Windows won the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards for the best poetry book published in Australia and in 2017 Burnt Umber was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize. He undertook an Australia Council Residency at the BR Whiting Studio in Rome in 2015–16.

Paul is Professor of Writing in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra, head of the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI), and joint founding editor of the international online journal Axon: Creative Explorations.

He founded the International Prose Poetry Group in 2014. With Cassandra Atherton, he is co-author of Prose Poetry: An Introduction (Princeton University Press, 2020) and co-editor of Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry (MUP, 2020).

Recent Poetry Books by Paul Hetherington

• Fugitive Letters (co-authored with Cassandra Atherton): https://recentworkpress.com/books/pro...​

• Typewriter and Manuscript http://gazebobooks.com.au/product/typ...​

• Palace of Memory: An Elegy https://recentworkpress.com/books/pro...​

• Moonlight on Oleander: Prose Poems https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/moon...​

• Íkaros https://recentworkpress.com/books/pro...​

• Gallery of Antique Art

Poets' Corner is WestWords' monthly encounter with celebrated Australian poets, curated by David Ades.

Each month a poet is invited to read and talk about their poetry on a theme of the poet's choice.

Damen O'Brien is a multi-award-winning Brisbane poet.

In 2021, Damen won the Cafe Writers Poetry Competition, the Magma Judge's Prize, the MPU International Poetry Competition and received second place in the Gregory O'Donoghue Poetry Competition.

Damen has been published in New Millenium Writings, the Atlanta Review, the Mississippi Review, Cordite, Southerly, StylusLit and many other journals. Damen has been lucky enough to win some of Australia and the world's most prestigious poetry prizes for a single poem, including the Moth Poetry Prize, the Newcastle Poetry Prize and the Peter Porter Poetry Prize.

Damen's first book of poetry, 'Animals With Human Voices' is forthcoming in September with Recent Work Press and is available now for pre-order. Damen keeps toying with moving to the United Kingdom, since it seems to like his poetry so much. His wife and children think he is crazy.

______

ABOUT WESTWORDS

WestWords is a literature organisation whose mission is to provide support and resources for the writers, poets, artists, storytellers and creators of Western Sydney, in the form of events, workshops, residencies, school visits, fellowships, groups, consultations and mentorships.

For more information, visit our website at https://www.westwords.com.au/​

WestWords is proudly supported by:

* CREATE NSW –Arts, Screen & Culture

* COPYRIGHT AGENCY Cultural Fund

* The City of Parramatta

* Blacktown City Council

* Campbelltown City Council

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

Poets' Corner is WestWords' monthly encounter with celebrated Australian poets, curated by David Ades.

Each month a poet is invited to read and talk about their poetry on a theme of the poet's choice.

Ali Cobby Eckermann’s first collection ‘little bit long time’ was written in the desert and launched her literary career in 2009. In 2013 Ali toured Ireland as Aust. Poetry Ambassador and won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and Book Of The Year (NSW) for Ruby Moonlight, a massacre verse novel. In 2014 Ali was the inaugural recipient of the Tungkunungka Pintyanthi Fellowship at Adelaide Writers Week, and the first Aboriginal Australian writer to attend the International Writing Program at University of Iowa.

In 2017 Ali received a Windham Campbell Award for Poetry from Yale University USA and was awarded a Literature Fellowship by the Australian Council for the Arts in 2018. Ali was granted a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship in Italy in 2019, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at RMIT Melbourne.

______

ABOUT WESTWORDS

WestWords is a literature organisation whose mission is to provide support and resources for the writers, poets, artists, storytellers and creators of Western Sydney, in the form of events, workshops, residencies, school visits, fellowships, groups, consultations and mentorships.

For more information, visit our website at https://www.westwords.com.au/​

WestWords is proudly supported by:

* CREATE NSW –Arts, Screen & Culture

* COPYRIGHT AGENCY Cultural Fund

* The City of Parramatta

* Blacktown City Council

* Campbelltown City Council

Music: https://www.purple-planet.com