Poetry Australia

Poetry Australia is a non-profit organisation I have set up to support and promote poetry from non-traditional places. Rhythmic poetry, in the form of RAP and hip-hop are with us all the time, but poetry as a written form in Australia doesn't have a place or presence with the people. That's because it is not owned by the people. The boards of the writer's association and poetry organisations are filled with academics and other who live in an echo chamber and who either write for their kind or support a feedback loop. 

Poetry Australia plans to seek grants to reach out to diverse communities and ordinary people and to encourage them to write poetry by offering prize money for their work and distribution through a free quarterly journal. 

I won the poetry prize for my school in my last two years of high-school and, as a young poet, that meant a lot in terms of validation and encouragement for me to go on. Poetry Australia will support all poets who live and breathe the real world and especially young poets, poet who speak languages other than English, poets across the gender spectrum and from First Nation and multicultural backgrounds, in Australia.