Poem Forest is a free nature writing prize that breathes life back into the natural world that sustains us.

In 2024, the POEM FOREST continued to grow on Dharawal Country in the Wollongong LGA, in partnership with Wollongong City Council. With over than 5,700 entries, each of these poems from students across the continent has contributed to growing a forest of poems for future generations.

Discover Poem Forest 2024

Each year, we commission Australian writers to pen a new poem responding to the themes of POEM FOREST. You can find writing activities inspired by their poems in our learning resource.

About the forest

The Poem Forest will continue to be planted on Dharawal and Wodi Wodi Country in Wollongong, and will extend far and wide across Wollongong with trees planted in local parks, natural areas, backyards and as street trees. With some of the lowest canopy cover in all of NSW, these trees are critical in creating a better future.

Seedlings planted in the Poem Forest include a mix of native plants like eucalypts, paperbarks (melaluca), palms, flame trees, as well as coastal-loving trees like Wild Quince (Guioa semiglauca) and Cheese Trees (Glochidion ferdinandi). They will be carefully prepared by the team at Wollongong Botanic Garden Nursery so they're ready to provide shade, purify the air, capture and store carbon, and provide homes for living things above and below ground.

The first Poem Forest was planted on traditional land of the Dharawal people, on Mount Annan, in the heart of the Australian Botanic Garden between 2021 and 2022, and is helping restore the critically endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland and Western Sydney Dry Rainforest.