Dženana Vucic reads her poem ‘There are Rivers Underneath the Sea’ commissioned as part of the 2025 Red Room Poetry Fellowship. 

Find out more and apply for the 2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship here.

Dženana is a Bosnian-Australian writer - her essays and poetry have been published widely, and she is working on a poetry collection and an autotheoretical novel. Her poetry collection after war is forthcoming with UQP in April 2026.

Applications for the 2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship open 9am, Tuesday 2 December 2025 and close 5pm, Tuesday 3 February 2026 (AEDT).

The Red Room Poetry Fellowship is presented in partnership with Varuna - the National Writers House, and thanks to our generous program supporters Bret Walker AO SC, Tim Game SC and The Adès Family Foundation.

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kaitlen Wellington reads her poem ‘Born to Fight’ commissioned as part of the 2025 Red Room Poetry Fellowship. 

Find out more and apply for the 2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship here.

Kaitlen Wellington is a Yuin woman who is an emerging writer, with poems published in the Australian Poetry Journal and Guwayu-For All Times.

Applications for the 2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship open 9am, Tuesday 2 December 2025 and close 5pm, Tuesday 3 February 2026 (AEDT).

The Red Room Poetry Fellowship is presented in partnership with Varuna - the National Writers House, and thanks to our generous program supporters Bret Walker AO SC, Tim Game SC and The Adès Family Foundation.

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Madison Godfrey reads their poem ‘Vroom Vroom Plays In The Background’ commissioned as part of the 2025 Red Room Poetry Fellowship. 

Find out more and apply for the 2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship here.

Madison is a writer, editor, educator and the author of Dress Rehearsals (Allen & Unwin: JOAN, 2023).

Applications for the 2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship open 9am, Tuesday 2 December 2025 and close 5pm, Tuesday 3 February 2026 (AEDT).

The Red Room Poetry Fellowship is presented in partnership with Varuna - the National Writers House, and thanks to our generous program supporters Bret Walker AO SC, Tim Game SC and The Adès Family Foundation.

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nam Le reads his poem ‘Richmond’ commissioned as part of the 2025 Red Room Poetry Fellowship program.

Find out more and apply for the 2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship here.

Nam’s work encompasses fiction, non-fiction, poetry and screen and has been translated into over fourteen languages. Receiving major awards in America, Europe and Australia. His work has appeared in modern classics series, and is widely anthologised and taught.

Applications for the 2026 Red Room Poetry Fellowship open 9am, Tuesday 2 December 2025 and close 5pm, Tuesday 3 February 2026 (AEDT).

The Red Room Poetry Fellowship is presented in partnership with Varuna - the National Writers House, and thanks to our generous program supporters Bret Walker AO SC, Tim Game SC and The Adès Family Foundation.

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every day across Poetry Month in August, 30in30 delivers new original poetry, reflections and writing prompts from some of the country’s leading poets, authors, and spoken word artists.

​​30in30 provides a snapshot of some of the best of contemporary Australian poetry - and in this episode, we’ve pulled together a selection of this year’s commissioned works for your listening pleasure.

Find out more about Poetry Month and the artists featured in this episode at redroompoetry.org/poetrymonth

Artist Bios and Poems

1. Chika Ikogwe artist biography, and poem, 'Let that Black lady breathe! 
2. Heather Mitchell artist biography, and poem, 'I Fell' 
3. Lang Leav artist biography, and poem, 'A Letter to My Mother at Immigration' 
4. Mitch McTaggart artist biography, and poem, 'In the event of apocalypse, remember TV'
5. Kirli Saunders artist biography, and poem, 'Safe Way'
6. Hasib Hourani artist biography, and poem, 'you can start anywhere, you’ll still hit all the service stations'
7. Manal Younus artist biography, and poem, 'I Dance'
8. Dominic Guerrera artist biography, and poem, 'cycle'
9. Lucy Norton artist biography, and poem, 'a song you can’t unsing'
10. Jonathan Sriranganathan artist biography, and poem, 'Clipper blades and feather pillows'
11. Juran Adams artist biography, and work 'Willow'

 

Explore Poetry Month

August is Poetry Month - a continent-wide celebration of contemporary Australian poetry established by Red Room Poetry to increase access, awareness and visibility of poetry in all its forms and for all audiences.

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What do art and sport have in common, and how do you feed your creativity?

Brendan Cowell is an award-winning writer, actor and director for television, theatre and film. He is currently in production on a six-part adaptation of his novel Plum with ABC and Screen Australia, starring Asher Keddie.

Red Room Poetry Creative Producer and Line Break host Izzy Roberts-Orr spoke with Brendan about his poem, ‘Boyd Cordner’, commissioned for Poetry Month 2021 and published in Red Room Poetry’s 20 year anthology A Line in the Sand, as well as art vs sport, the place of poetry and how he feeds his creativity. Keep an ear out for a cameo from Brendan’s Mum Yvonne as well.

Please note: This episode contains coarse language.

 

Explore Poetry Month

August is Poetry Month - a continent-wide celebration of contemporary Australian poetry established by Red Room Poetry to increase access, awareness and visibility of poetry in all its forms and for all audiences.

Explore the full program at https://poetrymonth.org.au/

This year, as part of Poetry Month, we're bringing the UK's Biggest Poetry and Performance Festival Down Under. The UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival BBC's Contains Strong Language comes to Sydney 28-31 August.

Check out the full program here

https://redroompoetry.org/projects/poetry-month/contains-strong-language/

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does poetry mean to you? And what if you could put a book on shuffle?

Nam Le’s work encompasses fiction, non-fiction, poetry and screen. His debut poetry collection 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem was published in March 2024 in Australia, the U.S. and U.K.

Red Room Poetry Creative Producer and Line Break host Izzy Roberts-Orr spoke with Nam about breaking the form of the book apart, poetry’s ability as a form to reach through language toward the incommunicable, and his poem, ‘Quilting the Armour’ commissioned as part of 30in30 for Poetry Month in partnership with the NGA.

‘Quilting the Armour’ is an ekphrastic poem responding to Sidney Nolan’s 1947 painting of the same name, which depicts Maggie Skillion lining the inside of Ned Kelly’s helmet.

 

Explore Poetry Month

August is Poetry Month - a continent-wide celebration of contemporary Australian poetry established by Red Room Poetry to increase access, awareness and visibility of poetry in all its forms and for all audiences.

Explore the full program at https://poetrymonth.org.au/

This year, as part of Poetry Month, we're bringing the UK's Biggest Poetry and Performance Festival Down Under. The UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival BBC's Contains Strong Language comes to Sydney 28-31 August.

Check out the full program here https://redroompoetry.org/projects/poetry-month/contains-strong-language/

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What can poetry do to change the world?

Earlier this year, we met up with poet and artist Jazz Money in a half-renovated room at Carriageworks during the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Scooched into the corner sitting cross-legged on the floor, Red Room Poetry Creative Producer Izzy Roberts-Orr spoke with Jazz about the radical potential of poetry, Sara M Saleh’s brilliant poem, ‘Border control: mediations’, and specificity as a gateway to the universal.

Jazz Money is a Wiradjuri poet and artist whose practice is centred around poetics to produce works that encompass installation, performance, film and print. Their most recent poetry collection is mark the dawn, published by UQP and now available at all good bookstores.

Sara M. Saleh is a human rights lawyer, organiser, writer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon. She has been published and anthologised widely, and made history as the first poet to win both the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize, and the Australian Book Review’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize. Her first full-length poetry collection, The Flirtation of Girls / Ghazal el-Banat is published by UQP, and her debut novel Songs for the Dead and the Living  is published by Affirm Press.

'Border control: mediations' by Sara M Saleh was published in Overland Issue 242, Autumn 2021, and was the winner of the 2020 Judith Wright Poetry Prize.

 

Explore Poetry Month

August is Poetry Month - a continent-wide celebration of contemporary Australian poetry established by Red Room Poetry to increase access, awareness and visibility of poetry in all its forms and for all audiences.

Explore the full program at https://poetrymonth.org.au/

This year, as part of Poetry Month, we're bringing the UK's Biggest Poetry and Performance Festival Down Under. The UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival BBC's Contains Strong Language comes to Sydney 28-31 August.

Check out the full program here - including events featuring both Jazz and Sara https://redroompoetry.org/projects/poetry-month/contains-strong-language/

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yirga is a writer, researcher and poet from Lalibela, Ethiopia. He currently lives in Whadjuk Noongar Boodja (Perth, Western Australia), where he is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University.

His Amharic poetry was published in a solo collection, የተራሮች ጩኸት (The Cry of Mountains), and has been performed widely on stage and radio in Ethiopia. His English short stories and translated poems have been published in anthologies and journals, including Westerly, Unlimited Futures (Fremantle Press) and Ways of Being Here (Centre for Stories and Margaret River Press).

Yirga is also one of the inaugural recipients of the Emerging Poetes Residency, which is currently open for applications! Here he is reading his poem 'ኪዳን / Covenant'. Read the full poem here:

https://redroompoetry.org/poets/yirga-gelaw-woldeyes/covenant/

Poetry Month (1–31 August) is an initiative presented by Red Room Poetry to increase the profile of Australian poetry in all of its forms. Every day across Poetry Month, 30in30 delivers new original poetry, reflections and writing prompts from some of the country’s leading poets, public figures, and spoken word artists. https://redroompoetry.org/projects/poetry-month/

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lulu Houdini is a proud Gamilaraay/Gomeroi woman, writer, artsworker, nurse and birth worker. She creates and explores around connections with poetry of land, sea, sky, story.

The main themes she explores are texture, Country, identity, traditional language, kweer nature, sensuality, love and finding our way back home to the guniimara, the mother's hands. She currently lives on and cares for Kabi Kabi/Gubbi Gubbi & Jinibara Country, Sunshine Coast.

Lulu is also one of the inaugural recipients of the Emerging Poets Residency, which is currently open for applications! Here she is reading her poem 'Mangrove Girls'. Read the full poem here:

https://redroompoetry.org/poets/lulu-houdini/mangrove-girls/

Poetry Month (1–31 August) is an initiative presented by Red Room Poetry to increase the profile of Australian poetry in all of its forms. Every day across Poetry Month, 30in30 delivers new original poetry, reflections and writing prompts from some of the country’s leading poets, public figures, and spoken word artists. https://redroompoetry.org/projects/poetry-month/

Support the show: https://redroompoetry.org/donate/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.