Poetica July 2024

Tariro Mavondo

Tariro Mavondo’s poetry is somatic; a loud, eruptive invitation to enlist oneself to presence as the passageway into experiencing the sensorium of human and non-human kinship. Tariro’s work is tethered to re-villagising, unifying through difference and remaking a post-humanist world where all things seen and unseen, known and unknown, thrive.  Tariro has been published in ‘Growing Up African in Australia’ (Black Inc. Books) and in Going Down Swinging. She has featured at Slamalamadingdong, Better Of Said, the Emerging Writers Festival, African Music and Cultural Festival and by Melbourne Poets Union, among many other events and festivals. 

Rose Lucas

Rose Lucas is a poet living and writing on unceded Wurundjeri Country and is an academic at Victoria University in the Graduate Research School. She is a member of both Compassionate Ocean and Abundant Earth sanghas in the Plum Village Zen tradition. She is the author of five poetry collections, Even in the Dark (UWAP, 2013), Unexpected Clearing (UWAP, 2016), This Shuttered Eye (Liquid Amber Press, 2021),  Increments of the Everyday (Puncher and Wattmann, 2022) and most recently Remarkable as Breathing (Liquid Amber Press, 2024), as well as collaborative projects with visual artist Sharon Monagle. She is Founding Editor at Liquid Amber Press.

Brendan Ryan

Brendan Ryan lives in Geelong and is the author of seven collections of poetry. His memoir, ‘Walk Like a Cow’, was published in 2020 by Walleah Press. His latest collection of poetry is ‘Feldspar’ (Recent Work Press, 2023).  Brendan’s poetry, reviews and essays have appeared in literary journals and newspapers, including ‘Contemporary Australian Poetry’ (Puncher and Wattman) and ‘The Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry’. His ‘New and Selected Poems’ will be published in 2025 by Recent Work Press.

Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne

Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne is a freelance writer/editor/programmer. Their work has appeared in Cordite, Southerly, Rabbit Journal and Overland, among other places. They were shortlisted for the 2022 Val Vallis Award and were the recipient of the 2021 Harri Jones Memorial Prize, as well as being one of the 2021 Ultimo Prize recipients. They were also awarded a 2021 Next Chapter Fellowship.

Visual rating 50%: Events are partly subtitled or include dialogue, background music and/or sounds, so d/Deaf and hard of hearing audiences can have some engagement with the event.

Aural Rating 100%: Entirely sound-based with no visual elements and can be fully experienced by blind or low vision audiences.