#30in30 Writing Competition Commissions 2025
Poetry Month
Each year as part of Poetry Month, we run the 30in30 Writing Competition. Writers from across the continent are encouraged to enter a 3-line poem or excerpt to win a book by a contemporary Australian poet every day of the month.
In September, we announced Mahalia Crawshaw, Noelia Ramón and Nathan Mudyi Sentance as the poets selected to develop their stanzas into a paid Red Room commission. Today, we invite you to read their completed poems:
Commissioned Poets
-
Smothered
By Mahalia CharlotteThe women in our family hold our trauma in our spines.
Backs bodies breaking under burdens; matrilineal line of
heightened hysterical hyper-aroused harpies.
-
A Manifesto (Written) in Salt
By Noelia RamónNot proclamations, not carved marble promises,
not headlines, not smoke rehearsing its pose.
But the hand of wind rearranging clouds,
the alphabet of rain sketching itself away -
english shackles his tongue
By Nathan Mudyi Sentanceit is a box with a few holes to let air in
he smiles
tightly coiled
knowing the air
