Poetry Month X is Coming to Adelaide, Darwin and Cairns
In recognition of the incredible range of poetic voices, communities and curators across the continent, Poetry Month X is a new initiative designed to support community-led poetry events as part of the 2026 Poetry Month program.
Today, we are thrilled to announce the events and activations that will be co-produced by Red Room Poetry this year:
Congratulations are in order to Sophie Benkemoun (NT), Maja Amanita (QLD) and Interplay Collective at Nexus Arts (SA)!
The complete details of these events will be shared when the 2026 Poetry Month program is launched later in the year. For now, we asked each of these local producers to describe how and where poetry exists in their town or region. We hope you enjoy listening to what they had to say as much as we did.
From Interplay Collective at Nexus Art, producer of Conversations: a Feast of Poetry & Music — a live improv conversation and performance between poets and musicians in Kaurna/Adelaide:
"Poetry lives in the beating heart of Kaurna Country. We reside on the rich and sacred lands of ancestral storytellers, and as we breathe in our surroundings, we inhale the seeds of our own inspired words and thoughts."
From Maja Amanita, producer of Poetry Month X This Fresh Hell — a feminist poetics exhibition and performance in Gimuy/Cairns:
"Poetry lives in the cinder bricks, on verandas and porches, in the shelters held together by timber and mortar that hold lives in kitchens as we come to debate the politics of freedom in the sunshine state. Poetry lives in the soliloquies of strangers mouthed at each other across dancefloors at Gilligan’s, bundy in one hand, durrie in the other and hearts full, tourists and locals, in the bars and hotels as people remember reading for pleasure. Poetry lives in the wet and the dry seasons, and in between, in the creeks and the streams, in the great Barron River, in the electric night sky as it lights up the arcs of great waterfalls. Poetry lives in the Great Barrier Reef as it feeds a phantasm of bright lives, fish of every known colour, sea grass and turtles and dugongs, sharks and rays, and every creature that hasn’t yet cut the yoke to the sea. Poetry lives in the clambering ceilings of the wet tropical rainforest, in the vines that reach as they fall to the wet ground, searching for hands to touch, searching for eyes to see, searching for voices to pray in the presence of divinity. Poetry lives in the pineapples and lychees, in the rolling pastures, in the honesty boxes and the banana stands, in people muttering frankly as they lasso mangoes from streetside trees overhanging free boundaries. This land feeds stories. This land grows with truth telling. This land doesn’t forget that it was never ceded, that sovereignty comes from the Southern sky and that the first poets live here in Gimuy, the Walubara Yidinji people. Poetry lives in the libraries and the book shops, small sections in the far aisle, found despite the best efforts of registrars. Poetry lives in these margins. It’s fragile and precious, come find it."
From Sophie Benkemoun, producer of Poetry Month X Darwin/Garramilla Jazz Poetry — a music-spoken word-visual arts live cabaret:
"In Darwin, poetry lives in 'first frog song beginning as air/turns heavy' to 'the breeze whisper[ing] its warm/breath', 'dragonflies/rest[ing] on palm frond/tips' and the eerie cry of curlews at dusk; 'they make our toes/curl every time'."
We would like to give a heartfelt thank you to everyone who applied — it is so good to see poetry thriving and taking different shapes at a grassroots level.
We look forward to seeing you all at these Poetry Month co-curated events!
