Our Poetry and Spoken Word events are (usually) held on the second Saturday of the month at 3 p.m., with a Poetry Writing Workshop running from 2 pm to 3 pm for anyone interested.

The indefatigable Yvette Stubbs will be featuring in May!

This wonderful free event in Dandenong will bring joy and possibly even spark inspiration.

Bring everyone and even recite one of your own poems!

It’s going to be a little weird and a lot wonderful at Cherry Poets over the next few weeks… this week, we have as feature sound poet and experimental musician and general bon vivant Shane van den Akker. I’m not quite sure what he’s preparing for his feature performance, and I’m not sure he’s sure either, but let’s just say, if you caught his recent show at the Festival of Surrealisms, you’ll know it’s going to be very weird indeed. So let’s sit back and enjoy the ride! As always, there will be a huge open mic section for everyone to bring their voices to, good company, fine beer, and lots of fun. Come along!

Chamber Poets #110 ft. Kevin Brophy

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.

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.

We're celebrating SIX YEARS with a spectacular sextet as part of  @melbwritersfest & @australian_poetry

Based on the Roman god Janus, we've invoked 3 artists from TRL past and 3 artists from TRL future to bring you a night of duality, doorways, and unending beginnings!

Our gateway to TRL past features:
Manisha Anjali  @manishaanjali
Hasib Hourani @hellohourani
Micaela Sahhar 

Friday 9 May
6.00PM
@wheelercentre

Our May Feature Poet is a wonderful chap, Paul Whitby, who we met at our Annual January Holiday Road Trip the previous year when we went to Cherry Tree Poets in Cremorne.
We have since seen him again at this year’s road trip to The Motley OpenHaus in Carlton and he has visited us several times up here in the Valley.

Radio Laria has been creating safe stages for poets and artists in Melbourne for many years. In 2025 they are starting Radio Laria Storytelling as a sister event to the popular monthly poets stage.
This event is an open mic and has space for up to 9 storytellers to share stories up to 7minutes each on the night, sign up up is on the door. Keeping it accessible this event is a mighty $10 entry, there is a raffle, a bar and you are invited to BYO snacks or take-away food to the venue. Our feature storyteller is the gorgeous Kendra Keller also known as Lady Longdrop.

Please join us for a night of great poetry with Ann de Hugard & Rob Wallis on Friday, 6-7pm EST.

This reading will take place in the chapel of the Uniting Church, Castlemaine, but will also be zoomed across Australia and into the DigiWorld.

SIP & SHARE - A speakeasy evening of poetry and spoken word on the Mornington Peninsula with feature poet Michael Pardy .

Join us for a 'speakeasy' evening of wine and spoken word performances at Rahona Valley on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula.

The first in The Radical Series a night of live music, raw poetry, and open mic energy. This is where truth gets loud and community feels close. More nights are coming. This is just the beginning. Make the choice. Let it be radical.

Feature: TBD

Open mic? You know it. Sign up from 1.30pm, show kicks off at 2pm.

Please join us for a night of great poetry with Ann de Hugard & Rob Wallis on Friday, 6-7pm EST.

This reading will take place in the chapel of the Uniting Church, Castlemaine, but will also be zoomed across Australia and into the DigiWorld.

Poetry/spoken word- world of poetry, a spoken world, words of worlds, worlds of words! Poetryspective #130: Myron Lysenko and Retrospective Open Section

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.

Featuring Anna Fern

Hello! This weekend we have a much anticipated feature - LISA MCLEAN, who launched her book last year, takes to the Cherry Poets stage. We've been wanting to get her as a feature since last year, but we've only been able to have it happen now. There'll also be plenty of open mic and - hey, why not? - plenty of beer also!

Poetry@Chrissy Hills

The Famous Open Mic

BYO poem, humour, food, drink to share

It’s the Thank God You’re Here Extravaganza

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

April feature is Sarah St James

Theme: Steel
mentally prepare (oneself) to do or face something difficult.
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 FIONA STUART at Platform 3095 💕💕

Hello folks, we've got quite a nice little poetry gig going on here at Cherry Poets, and yes, we also have it going on Easter Saturday! And we are super proud and excited to have an excellent feature during Easter - HELEN JARVIS, hot off the heels of a recent book launch. We're sure to get some new poems, maybe some old favourites, and who knows what else? Bring your own poems for sharing on the open mic, and we're going to have a little ol' poetry shindig - this Saturday, from 2 pm (doors open at 1.30), at the Cherry Tree Hotel.

Please join us for a night of great poetry with Marilyn Arnold. Online only.

Zoom link posted on https://www.facebook.com/ross.donlon.58 by Thursday prior.

It is a delight to introduce the Perc.U.lations crowd to our amazing feature: Helen Jarvis!

Helen is a British-born writer who has lived for two decades in Melbourne/Naarm.  Her writing has won the Nillumbik Poetry Ekphrasis award and the Ada Cambridge awards for poetry and biographical prose. She was runner-up in the 2024 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize and has been shortlisted for poetry prizes including the ACU, MPU and Martha Richardson awards. Her work has appeared in award anthologies and in the Australian journals Island and Rabbit, and she has featured on 3CR’s Spoken Word radio program. In 2024, Helen performed her poetry at the Third International Poetry Festival of Naoussa in Greece. 

Helen has just launchedThe Kindness of Water, her first collection of poetry. "Wide-ranging, sensitive an reflective, it is characterised by certain sense of longing: the perennial migrant experience, suspended between embracing a new world and regretting a world that has been lost. The perspective that emerges from this precarious balance lends a freshness and an urgency to the close observation that characterises these poems."

Hey poets! Next week's feature is the redoubtable NANDI CHINNA, who will be making a flying visit to Melbourne's shores in the coming days, and you will have an exclusive opportunity to hear some of her work at Cherry Poets! There will of course be our open mic, and we're looking forward to hearing every one of you. So stay tuned for more details, and book next Cherry Poets event in your diaries now - it'll be a good one!

Chamber Poets #109 Fringe Myrtles - Haiku Special

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.

In April, Yarra Valley Spoken Word is going to town!
Warburton to be precise, and we are very honoured to be collaborating with Maya Ward to present a special evening on Friday night, 11th April at her current exhibition at the Arts Centre.
‘And they are Seeing you: Meeting the Gaze of an Alive World’ invites us to consider how we might cultivate deeper, more respectful and loving relationships with all beings. This exhibition explores themes of perception, awareness, and the place of meeting between human and more-than-human life. It celebrates and depicts practices of living attuned to the world around us such as forest walking, food growing, connecting with animals and children, and contemplative techniques of deep listening and flow writing.

This autumn, Radio Laria is excited to present wonderful, Perth poet Nandi Chinna and the fantastic Hayley Ricketson from Melbourne’s Team Slama. Nandi is the author of four poetry collections who is inspired to create poetry grounded in ecologies and layers of history. Hayley is a poet, playwright and slam finalist who we have loved hearing on the open mic. Speaking of open mic... we are equally excited to make space for ten open-micers (five-minute limit, sign up on the night, and arriving early is recommended for sign up).

Poetry Bauhaus is a fabulous new gig set in West Gippsland, Warragul.

Feature Es Foong / Waffle Irongirl

Plus a popular  open mic,  where poets vie for the much coveted Bauhaus Poetry Cup, also a support feature in our next gig.

Convened by Yvette Stubbs,

supported by Baw Baw Arts Alliance.

Poetry Bauhaus is presenting a special pre-gig workshop facilitated by Es Foong / Waffle Irongirl

Writing to be Heard followed by the regular Poetry Bauhaus event afterwards.

Convened by Yvette Stubbs,

supported by Baw Baw Arts Alliance

We think that Mo Mann is really made of magic! One of the most consistently generous, kind and enthusiastic members of not just the poetry community but our arts scene in gereral (no one laughs louder at a comedy gig... ok maybe Josh Cake). He's a beautiful spirit with amazing stories to tell and poems to share; rays of positivity reflecting some of the darkest times. If you saw Mo's Melbourne Fringe show "Echoes from the Horn" in 2024 then you definitely know what a treat you're in for this Saturday. And if you didn't, if you've even maybe never seen or met Mo Mann before... well you are in for such an amazing experience.

please join us for a night of great poetry with Angela Costi Friday, April 4th 6-7pm live in the chapel of the Uniting Church on the top of  Agitation Hill

This reading will take place in the chapel of the Uniting Church, Castlemaine, but will also be zoomed across Australia and into the DigiWorld.

A sketch and poetry/comedy show with two of Melb's nuisance poets - Shy and Tej and a comic, James. Poems about airplane food, and beetroot and more. Come on thru