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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Staying in the Bastille
By Mindy GillIt was the end of summer,
I hadn’t been thinking of anyone.
Lunch at Les Deux Magots,
cold melon for dessert. -
With Change
By Aurora Liddle-ChristieThe land is crying for us to care
care that blood waters its soil more than rain
The seasons have shifted, but humanity stays the same
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