A Year in Poems 2025
Twelve poems for twelve great months of poetry
With the year coming to a close, this is the perfect time to reflect on the extraordinary poetry our commissioned poets graced us with in 2025.
Throughout the months, we were gifted with nature poems in Poem Forest, perfectly crafted verses from the Red Room Poetry Fellows, exciting spoken poetry in ABC Line Break, words that kept you dialling for more in Phone-a-Poem, First Nations dreamy songlines in Baraya Barray - Whale Song, voices from across the continent joining together at Poetry Month, stanzas that told stories beyond diagnosis in MAD Poetry, and much more.
We farewell the year with twelve hand-picked poems to mark twelve months of poetic bliss. We wish you a joyous holiday season, and look forward to seeing you again in the new year.
1.
"But this nightjar, who sprinkles
my many nights with song, has moved
into my garden and just keeps staring.
I watch the butterfly. I am watched
by the owlet. Together we are knitted
into this quiet invisible air."
2.
"the poem isn’t sure
about its body
maybe its left arm is imaginary
its legs an illusion
its torso
hallucinatory heaviness in the water"
3.
"country heals the broken
peace found in a hush of wind
through tree and river
to reconcile our spirit
a sigh of smoke
tendrilling
cleansing and rekindling"
4.
"And all the busy, blood-lit life was lost to the tall forest of the mind.
And I said, ‘Sometimes I burn like that. Am I rebellion?’
And you said, ‘You’re one with the world.’"
5.
"GAAN NGAYA NGURRAMAYN MITJIDIYN WAKULDIYN
Mother whale make camp for little one
NYUNDA NGARRAYN NYUN.GUBA MARIN
She listens to her body
NGARRAYN BARRAY
Listens to Country"
6.
"And I, fatherless,
daughter of a daughter,
knelt too. Did our
ancestors embrace us
or pity us? The next day
we drove to the airport for
my flight home."
7.
"He’s never heard the lions in the house – this man, this husband,
your husband. He has always slept in a way you can’t understand.
A careless sleep; reckless, unvigilant. When you first met
you envied it, but now it terrifies you."
8.
"In tongues. We thrash around in the dark. The effort of speaking human. Translation. Do you know what I mean? Or are we lost? Drowning in blue. In heat. In tinnitus. Sucking old wounds and edges of skin with no turgor left."
9.
"I was born into a world already on fire.
The skies stitched in smoke before I learned to say my name.
History cracked like a fault line beneath my crib,
and the lullabies were sirens softened by my mother’s hum."
10.
"Grandest mother, I’m sorry we never had a chance to meet
I’m sorry your roots are far deeper than mine
For now, I hope this bed of tears will suffice
So swallow me, at the end of every apology
And embrace my body, in the roots of casuarina."
11.
"Neruda says I want no truck with death > discard the with > I want no truck > no cave in > no translation > I don’t want anything to do with death > I want > cellar door > incantation > not quite driveway > morning > only the night sky & its mouth wide open as if searching for that after-tin of blood"
12.
"I lived in the flood for months. Forgot
there’d ever been a different state of being,
a reprieve,
or a self
that wasn’t drowning"
We hope you've enjoyed the section. See you again next year!