Poetry Across Country: The Story of Poetry Month
As Poetry Month turns five, we're celebrating the milestones, memories, and magic of the past years.
Each August, Red Room helps poetry to move across the country — in classrooms, libraries, radios, stages, and screens. Poetry Month, Red Room Poetry’s annual celebration of verse, began with a simple belief: that poetry in all of its forms, could be part of everyday life, offering moments of connection, reflection, and creativity for everyone.
When we first launched Poetry Month in 2021, we set out to make poetry a daily presence — something that sparks conversation, and reminds us of the beauty and complexity of language. Since then, Poetry Month has grown into a national celebration that commissions new works, amplifies emerging and established poets, and reaches audiences across Australia.
Over the years, thousands of poets, students, readers, and listeners have helped shape Poetry Month. We’ve seen how poetry can energise, comfort, challenge, and inspire. In a fast-moving world, poetry invites us to slow down, to pay attention, and to hold space for what matters.
The Pulse of Poetry
Poetry Month isn’t just about celebrating poetry as an artform — it’s about recognising poetry as a vital part of culture and conversation. Poems help us understand ourselves and each other. They give voice to experiences that often remain unspoken.
Every year, Poetry Month invites Australians to engage with poetry in new and accessible ways. From attending a poetry showcase in their state to online workshops or projects like 30in30 (thirty new commissioned poems released daily throughout August with an open invitation for audiences to write their own poems responding to daily prompts) and Line Break (bringing poetic voices to the airwaves and audiences across Australia), poetry has become part of daily rituals, work commutes, classrooms, and community events.
Poetry Month Through the Years
Here are just a few highlights from Poetry Month’s journey:
2021: Poetry Month launches with 30in30, featuring 30 new commissioned poems published in 30 days. Audio and video poems featured on ABC Radio and the Guardian online, broadcasting poetry online to audiences across Australia, and eight notable public figures with a deep love for poetry are invited to act as inaugural Poetry Ambassadors.
2022: Engagement grows and initiatives expand to include live and livestream showcases around the country, online workshops, the launch of the pilot program Poets in Residence in partnership with the City of Sydney, ekphrastic commissions with the NGA, the development of a Poetry Month Calendar, writing prompts via our new daily 30in30 comp, and our first National Poetry Month Gala.
2023: Celebrating 20 years of Red Room Poetry, Poetry Month 2023 returned with another sold-out National Poetry Month Gala, the release of our anthology A Line in the Sand, amongst a raft of exciting new commissions, fresh ambassadors, state and territory showcases – including the first in Byron Bay and Darwin. This edition also featured a range of accessible online events and live streams, workshops by international guest poets, residency call outs, poetic installations, and our calendar including community micro-grants.
2024: Our biggest Poetry Month to date, the 2024 edition expanded its reach by partnering with the BBC and bringing the beloved Contains Strong Language festival – the biggest poetry and performance festival in the UK – to Australia for the first time as part of our August festivities. As always, the National Poetry Month Gala, newly commissioned poets and ambassadors, community calendar, state and territory showcases, 30in30 writing prompts, accessible online events, live streams, and workshops helped make August a month to remember amongst audience members and patrons.
2025: This year sees the return of daily 30in30 commissions and our writing prompt comp (with a new twist), a focus on our Red Room Fellows at Varuna, state-based showcases and events (including a few new formats), accessible online workshops and panels, a Youth Ambassador program, the National Poetry Month Gala, increased poetry on our national airwaves, and the launch of a public call out lyrics competition (watch this space).
Looking ahead, Poetry Month remains committed to celebrating poetry’s power to connect us — across cities and regions, across cultures and generations. Because poetry does not belong only on the page, it belongs amongst us in the real world.
The Poetry Month Community Calendar is opening today!
If you’re planning a poetry event this August — whether it’s a workshop, reading, exhibition or school project — we’d love to feature it. You can also apply for a $500 micro grant to support a local event happening in your region. Click this link for details on how to share your event and be part of the national celebration.
As we prepare for Poetry Month 2025, we invite you to read previously commissioned poems below.
