Welcome to Red Room Poetry
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20+ Years
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90+ Major projects
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1,818+ Poets commissioned
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43,665+ Poems created
Poem Forest 2025: Understory
Unveiling the Understory
Step into the 2025 Poem Forest and explore this year’s theme: Understory — an invitation to uncover the rich, hidden layers of the natural world and ourselves. We’re calling on students and teachers to slow down, listen deeply, and give voice to the vibrant life beneath the forest canopy — from fungi and insects to roots, memory, and quiet growth. Whether you're writing from the spinifex plains or the depths of a classroom, we invite you to notice what often goes unseen and celebrate the stories that thrive in shadow. Join us in nurturing both creativity and Country — for every poem submitted, a tree will be planted, helping to grow a future where every voice matters.
Featured Theme
Looking to the stars...
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The Great Displaced
By Omar MusaFor Jess
The boy lights a candle
and faces a perilous horizon. -
all the while, trying to start the engine
By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips, Helen Franzmann(for Jupiter)
between waking and sleep, two switches flicker
connecting stop-starts from Life and Now
Featured Projects
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ABC Line Break
We are thrilled to be partnering with the national broadcaster, ABC Radio National, to bring you a weekly poem across 2025 from poets across the continent. -
Baraya Barray - Whale Song
Baraya Barray is a cultural immersion experience for young First Nations people, celebrating First Languages through the creation of poetry, song and dance. -
Middle of the Air
A new national competition with ABC RN, uniting poem and song
Featured Theme
Find your new favourite poem
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How Long
By Jo Giles“So, have they told you how long they think you’ve got?”
Gun loaded, trigger pulled, gun shot.
It’s a common question, I should mention
This Doctor’s not so out of line -
We Are Asking For Songs
By Leah SeniorWe go to pray where the edge of land drops away
We spread our picnic rug on the air
No holy wine, we hold our glasses to the sky
Drinking cumulonimbus and contrails -
This difference exists
By Candy Royalle1.
all that makes us
sink beneath the
weight of simply
