Understanding Poetry

Anisa is a nationally recognised spoken word poet, play writer, educator and published author. She is the 2016 Queensland Poetry slam champion and runner up for the Australian poetry slam championships. She is the Sunshine Coast laughable comedy champion 2020 and won the crowd favourite prize at the good chat comedy club finals 2020. In 2017 she published her first book Melanin Garden and won the XYZ Innovation in Spoken Word Prize. She has performed at the Sydney Opera house, Splendour in the Grass, Queensland Poetry festival, Women of the world festival and toured the country sharing stories of love and courage. Anisa is also the co-founder of the arts collective Voices of Colour which creates spaces for migrant, refugee and first nations artists to share their work.

Omar Sakr is the author of two acclaimed poetry collections, These Wild Houses (Cordite Books) and The Lost Arabs (UQP). The Lost Arabs won the 2020 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award, the John Bray Poetry Award, the Judith Wright Calanthe Award, and the Colin Roderick Award. Omar is a widely published essayist and editor whose work has been translated into Arabic and Spanish. Born to Lebanese and Turkish Muslim migrants in Western Sydney, he lives there still. Son of Sin is his first novel.

Sarah Holland-Batt is Professor of Creative Writing and Literary Studies at the Queensland University of Technology, and a Prime Minister's Literary Award-winning poet, writer and critic. Her most recent books are a collection of essays on contemporary Australian poetry, Fishing for Lightning: The Spark of Poetry (UQP, 2021), and her third volume of poetry, The Jaguar (UQP, 2022). She is presently the 2022 Judy Harris Writer in Residence at the University of Sydney.

Pascalle Burton is a Meanjin-based experimental poet and performer with an interest in conceptual art and cultural theory. She also plays in the band The Stress of Leisure. Her collection About the Author is Dead is available through Cordite Books.