Traversing the Boundaries
Newcastle poet Gillian Swain, author of ‘My skin its own sky’ details intimate, familiar worlds combining past and present. Carl Walsh navigates the topography of history, family and loss, reading from his debut collection ‘Tarp Green Light’. Alicia Sometimes, author of ‘Stellar Atmospheres’, turns her reflective gaze to the astronomical, and legendary Melbourne anarchist poet TT.O. brings his inner urban perspective and traverses the boundaries of the unconventional.
Poets: TT.O., Gillian Swain, Carl Walsh & Alicia Sometimes
Hosted by Amanda Anastasi
Image by Piotr Krzeslak
Poetica Sep 2024 will also be livestreamed. Livestream playback will be available for 72 hours after the show.
TTO is an inner urban writer, who is one of the pillars of Australian poetry, traversing the boundaries of the unconventional culturally, linguistically, politically, and poetically tenets; bound to win the Nobel Prize for Poetry very soon.
Gillian Swain is a poet based in the Hunter region on Wonnarua land and grew up on Awabakal land. Gillian’s poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Australian Poetry Anthology, Burrow, Poetry for the Planet: An Anthology of Imagined Futures and What We Carry: Poetry on Childbearing. Her debut poetry collection is ‘My Skin its own Sky’ (Flying Islands Press, 2019), following her chapbook Sang Up (Picaro Press, 2001). The ‘Vessels Of Love’ project features Gillian’s work alongside six other celebrated poets online, produced by The Salons and Poetry Sydney. Along with performing her poetry at live events and speaking as a panellist at festivals, she is involved in running various poetry events including as Co-Director and Poetry Curator of the writers festival ‘IF Maitland’.
Carl Walsh lives and writes on Wurundjeri land. An ex-tradie, he’s now either a public servant masquerading as a poet or a poet masquerading as a public servant – he’s not sure which. He’s obsessed with Japanese novels (in translation), prehistoric sites, Roman ruins, medieval castles, 70s prog music, 80s pop, new wave, twee, shoegaze and the odd bit of punk. He can also talk for hours about coffee and micro-brewed beers. Did he mention he has ADHD? Carl’s poetry has appeared in StylusLit, Meanjin, Rabbit, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Shearsman Magazine, Echidna Tracks, Westerly and Jacaranda (amongst others). His first book of poetry, ‘Tarp Green Light’ was published through Flying Islands at the start of 2024.
Alicia Sometimes is a writer, multimedia artist and broadcaster. She has performed her spoken word and poetry at many venues, festivals and events around the world. Her poems have been in Best Australian Science Writing, Best Australian Poems, Meanjin, Westerly and many more. Alicia has been awarded residencies at Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, Varuna, Melbourne Aquarium, Boyd Garret and a virtual residency for the Manchester Literature Festival. She was a Creative Fellow at the State Library of Victoria. In 2023, she received ANAT’s Synapse Artist Residency and co-created an art installation for Science Gallery Melbourne’s exhibition, Dark Matters. Her new book is Stellar Atmospheres.
Access Information:
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.