Cherry Poets! Next week we have a visitor from the fair lands of Perth. LEONARD JAMES, some-time host of Perth Poetry Club and curator of two issues of Creatrix, will be flying in to share his poetry with us in the feature slot. And you are all invited to add your own poems to the open mic - bring old poems and new, poems about distant lands or the land you are standing on right now. Everyone is welcome!

Assorted Sporks is a queer friendly regular poetry and performance night at Mamma Chen's on the last Thursday of the month.

March 2025 features Steve Smart

Theme: Camp and what it means to you
Themes are not mandatory, they are just to encourage you to experiment with your writing and improvisation. Feel free to make it weird.

Join us for the next Platform Poets with feature guest Steve Smart at Platform 3095 💕💕

Join us for an unforgettable evening of poetry and music, featuring two of Victoria’s most talented artists!

Michael Crane – one of our most prolific local poets – will be sharing insights from his latest book, Urban & Landscape/Ordinary Lives. His poetry captures the beauty and grit of everyday life, bringing to light the stories of ordinary people in both urban and rural landscapes.

Sarah Carroll – aka The Ukulele Queen of the Bellarine – will bring her signature warmth and energy to the stage, performing live. With a career spanning six albums and countless gigs across Australia, Sarah’s music is full of heart, storytelling, and rootsy goodness.

Poetry/spoken word- world of poetry, a spoken world, words of worlds, worlds of words! Poetryspective #128 Featuring Joe De lacovo Molloy & Di Cousens Judith Rodriguez retrospective

FIRECRACKER POEMS
chosen and read by local identities

PoetiCas at the Castlemaine Fringe Festival
Saturday 22 March 2.30pm-4.30pm

PoetiCas has been hosting regular poetry gatherings in Castlemaine since 2015. Our monthly events have become a cherished part of the community. For Castlemaine Fringe, local identities will bring us their chosen poems for an afternoon of great poetry. All are welcome.

Hello everyone and hello all! Next week at Cherry Poets let's take an expedition into the world of slam poetry with rising slam poet star NICK JENKINS our feature. We'll also have our famous open mic, and there'll be plenty of space to just sit back and relax and listen to other poets. It's going to be a good one!

Please join us for a night of great poetry with Penelope Layland, Zoom link posted on https://www.facebook.com/ross.donlon.58 by Thursday prior.

That internationally, nay, intergalactically wanted supervillain, the Danksta From Downunder, AKA Mr Big, AKA Hamish Danks Brown, will be presenting a litany of his crimes and misdemeanours at the Cherry Poets this weekend. He knows only one law: the law of the Street Poets, and he won’t be holding back. There’ll also be plenty of open mic, IF YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE THE HEAT!

Discover and embrace your inner surrealist at this independent, multi-arts festival featuring continuous events "of the weird, by the weird, for the weird".

20th Century Fish in association with Endlessoptimism, incontinently present: (The Ninth) FESTIVAL OF SURREALISMS, Saturday March 15th and Sunday March 16th 2025, at Temperance Hall in Napier Street, South Melbourne.
Compered by Captain W.N. Fish (Bill Marshall) and his loyal co-producer, Dr Oculus (Marco Lawrence), the FESTIVAL OF SURREALISMS features non-stop performances of Dadaistic poetry, unusual musical offerings, strange theatrical spectacles, psychedelic movies, avant-garde experimental sounds and bizarre “happenings”.

This in one of our bi-monthly events with a Feature Artist and 8 open mic spots. Mother Tongue is a place for Passionate, Powerful, Vulnerable and Honest performance; it stands aside from most Spoken Word events in its depth and authenticity.

Hi fellow Spoken Word devotees,

We are delighted that the co-founder of Yarra Valley Spoken Word Andy Travis is Feature Poet on Friday, 14th March 2025 and he invites you to start a conversation that needs to be had....

Radio Laria Storytelling is starting in 2025, a sister event to the traditional poetry stage where community is invited to share stories on a theme; and our first theme for this event is WONDER AND AWE.

Café Philosophique runs the 2nd Wednesday of the month at the Bridge Hotel in Werribee, exploring the hidden forces that shape our lives through music, poetry and conversation.

On Wednesday March 12, we will be taking a deep dive into TRANSCENDENCE. From stargazing to worshipping the divine, what happens when we acknowledge what is greater than us? And what happens when we fail to see beyond our everyday existence?

We are beginning the year with a bang! Perc.U.lations regular Andrew Rogerson, slam poet and podcast creator will be featuring!

Andrew Rogerson is a two-time Australian Poetry Slam state finalist and the winner of the 2024 Poetryspective RetroSlam

With his heart on his sleeve and a pop-culture reference in his back pocket, Andrew's pieces are wordy, nerdy and flirty.

Outside of performing, Andrew works in fintech and hosts "I Think, Therefore I Slam", a podcast featuring the best spoken word and slam poetry artists from Australia and beyond"

This week we are happy-wrapt (wrapt-happy? hmm) to present to you the brilliant Sarah St James. One of our finest younger generational poets*, Sarah (who you may know as Sadie) has range and depth to be very much admired. So come and admire. And clap lots, and read on the open mic if you wanna. Sign up from 1.30pm, gig kicks off at 2pm.

Chamber Poets #108 ft. Robyn Rowland

With a hearty open section, great original live music from Black Forest Smoke and good value RSL food and drinks. 1pm for a 115pm start.

Please join us for a night of great poetry with Myron Lysenko, live in the chapel on top of Agitation Hill, Castlemaine and zoomed across space from there.

Myron will read for 20 minutes, followed by the popular QnA involving the live and on line audience, concluding with his encore - all over in one hour.

This month we have our beloved Elijah Moretti ( @eli.is.typing_ ) joining us as feature act for the month!

Elijah started writing poetry when they were 13. Writing, much like other performing arts has always come easy to them, like second nature. Elijah’s writing focuses on themes of heartbreak, love and the queer experience.

Is it poetry time again? IT'S ALWAYS POETRY TIME! But this Saturday is ESPECIALLY poetry time, because we have another gig of Cherry Poets coming up, and our feature this weekend is STEVE FULCHER!

Poetry@Chrissy Hills

The Famous Open Mic

BYO poem, humour, food, drink to share Featured Reader: Rose Lucas

Assorted Sporks is a queer friendly regular poetry and performance night at Mamma Chen's on the last Thursday of the month.

February 27 Features Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne.

Theme: Housing. Themes are not mandatory, they are just to encourage you to experiment with your writing and improvisation. Feel free to make it weird.

We back!! And as always, the vibes are ELEVATED 🆙️

Featuring:

Cher Tan @mxcreant
Luke Beesley @__lukebeesley
Jag @trilljag
Mia Nie @girlwithhorn

Poetry/spoken word- world of poetry, a spoken world, words of worlds, worlds of words! Poetryspective #128 Featuring Joe De lacovo Molloy & Di Cousens Judith Rodriguez retrospective

Poetry Slam at the Flinders Fringe.

A chance to perform your poetry/spoken word before an audience and judges.

Adjudicators: Admired Melbourne poet/slam adjudicator Jennifer Compton, plus a Flinders Fringe Festival partner.

PoetiCas has been hosting regular poetry gatherings in Castlemaine since 2015, following on the tradition of Ross Donlon's poetry readings in the decade prior. It has grown into a wonderful community and their monthly events are beloved by many.

The usual format brings a featured reader to share their work, as well as an open section for the community to share their own original poems in a warm and supportive space, MC'd by a local poet and publisher . All are welcome to attend, to read or just to listen.

Guest writer: E A Gleeson

If you haven’t experienced the poetic work and performance of Sean O’Callaghan before… how now to describe Sean to the uninitiated? It might be macrocosm masquerading as microcosm, or should that be microcosm masquerading as… It’s Irishly matter of fact, while being also way the fuck out there and sometimes downright surreal.

Please join us for a night of great poetry with Hugh McMillan zooming from somewhere in Scotland. possibly Dumfries, Friday, February 21st, 6-7pm. 18.00 - 19.00 Zoom link posted on https://www.facebook.com/ross.donlon.58 by Thursday 20th.

Hugh featured last year but as someone not so well known in Australia as he might be some missed out on the night. 

SIP & SHARE - A speakeasy evening of poetry and spoken word on the Mornington Peninsula with feature poet Amanda Anastasi. Join us for a 'speakeasy' evening of wine and spoken word performances at Rahona Valley on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula.

Featuring: Cam Gleeson

Cam Gleeson disappears into poetry around family. His work incorporates sport, faith and gender-relations but ends up being about who he is related to.

Photo courtesy of Brendan B. Melbourne Spoken Word Prize 2019

Open Mic? Yes! 1.30pm open mic sign up with 2pm kick off? Yes Yes. Drinks and food? It's a pub, rest assured all things possible and lovely.