The Bankstown Poetry Slam is the largest regular poetry slam in Australia [1] [2] that has been drawing increasingly diverse audiences from around Sydney since it started in Bankstown in 2013. [3] BPS has become a literary institution in western Sydney with 200-300 people regularly attending their volunteer-run monthly slams at the Bankstown Arts Centre. [4]
The Bankstown Poetry Slam (BPS) was founded in 2013 by Sara Mansour and Ahmad Al Rady, [5] and held in the southwest Sydney suburb of Bankstown. Since its inception, the poetry slam has featured notable poets such as Omar Musa, Luka Lesson, Jazz Money, Rupi Kaur and Rudy Francisco. It has held grand slams at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Town Hall, and The Sydney ICC. [6]
The Bankstown Poetry Slam is currently run by Sara Mansour, [2] Bilal Hafda, [4] and Yasmine Lewis.
In 2018, security guards were hired for the event after comments from Australian politician Mark Latham incited online threats and abuse against attendees. [7]
In 2022, BPS organised the Brave New Word Poetry Festival, bringing poetry to nine suburbs across western Sydney. More than 50 participants had the opportunity to workshop poems with prominent international spoken word artists. [3]
At their annual Grand Slam in 2024, BPS hosted Plestia Alaqad, a Palestinian journalist who rose to social media fame from their footage of the devastation of their home city during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Many of the event guests and performers were wearing Palestinian kheffiye in solidarity with Alaqad. Writer and lawyer Sara M Saleh was one of the judges and the winning acts (ARAB, AI, and Halal Collab) shared a prize of $8,000 AUD between them. [2]
The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize was a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature by an author from the Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and published in the United Kingdom. Established in 1942, it was one of the oldest literary awards in the UK.
Leah Maree Purcell is an Aboriginal Australian stage and film actress, playwright, film director, and novelist. She made her film debut in 1999, appearing in Paul Fenech's Somewhere in the Darkness, which led to roles in films, such as Lantana (2001), Somersault (2004), The Proposition (2005) and Jindabyne (2006).
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are major British awards for poetry, presented annually at a public ceremony in London. They were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience. The prizes do this by identifying and honouring talent: collections published in the UK and Ireland over the course of the previous year are eligible, as are single poems nominated by journal editors or prize organisers. Each year, works shortlisted for the prizes – plus those highly commended by the judges – are collected in the Forward Book of Poetry.
The New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, also known as the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, were first awarded in 1979. They are among the richest literary awards in Australia. Notable prizes include the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, and the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction.
Omar bin Musa is a Malaysian-Australian author, poet, rapper, and visual artist from Queanbeyan, New South Wales. He has released four hip hop records, four books of poetry, and the novel Here Come the Dogs, which was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award and the International Dublin Literary Award. Musa was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Young Novelists of the Year in 2015.
The Donald Windham Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes are an American literary award which offers unrestricted grants in four categories, namely fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. Established at Yale University in 2011, the first prizes were presented in 2013. Administered by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the award recognizes English language writers from across the world. The mission of the award is to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns. In 2017 the category of poetry was added and eight prizes have been awarded annually since then.
Mehreen Saeed Faruqi is a Pakistani-born Australian politician and former engineer who has been a Senator for New South Wales since 15 August 2018, representing the Greens. She was chosen to fill a casual vacancy caused by the resignation of Lee Rhiannon, before being elected in her own right in 2019. She had previously served in the New South Wales Legislative Council between June 2013 and August 2018. Since June 2022, Faruqi has served as Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens.
Adania Shibli is a Palestinian author and essayist. She is mainly known for the 2020 translation of her novel Minor Detail into English, German and other languages, and for a public controversy in Germany following the cancellation of a literary prize for this book, originally scheduled for the 2023 Frankfurt Book Fair.
Jenny Leong, an Australian politician, is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Newtown for the Greens since 2015. Leong is the first person to represent Newtown in its current form, as it was created for the 2015 election.
The Drover’s Wife is a play by Leah Purcell, loosely based on the classic short story of the same name by Henry Lawson published in 1892.
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Barbara and the Camp Dogs is a rock musical by Ursula Yovich and Alana Valentine with songs by Valentine, Yovich and Adm Ventoura. The work concerns Barbara, an Aboriginal pub singer trying to make it in Sydney, and her cousin and foster sister René. When the health of Barbara's mother deteriorates, they embark on a pilgrimage back home to country in the Northern Territory.
Counting and Cracking is a play by Australian playwright S. Shakthidharan, first staged in 2019 in Sydney.
Jackson Topine pronounced is a former New Zealand professional rugby league footballer who last played as a second-row forward for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in the National Rugby League (NRL) and the New Zealand Māori at international level.
Sara Mansour is an Australian lawyer, writer, poet, and founder/artistic director of the Bankstown Poetry Slam. The Bankstown Poetry Slam is the largest regular Poetry Slam in Australia which offers an artistic outlet for the often-marginalised youth of Western Sydney to share their voice in a safe and inclusive environment.
Monique Marie Ryan is an Australian politician and former paediatric neurologist. She is currently the independent Member of Parliament for the Division of Kooyong, Victoria, having won the seat at the 2022 federal election.
Katherine Deves Morgan is an Australian lawyer who ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Liberal Party of Australia at the 2022 Australian federal election.
Pauline Hanson's One Nation – New South Wales, also known as One Nation – New South Wales or simply One Nation NSW, is the New South Wales branch of Pauline Hanson's One Nation.
Seven Terrors is a science fiction novel by Selvedin Avdić. Originally published in 2010 in Bosnian, it was translated into English by Coral Petkovich published in the UK by Istros Books in 2012.
Plestia Alaqad is a Palestinian journalist and poet. She gained international attention for her daily coverage of the Israel–Hamas war, which began on 7 October 2023, by way of her social media accounts. In November 2023, as the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip intensified, Alaqad and her family fled to Egypt and then to Australia, where she has continued her advocacy on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. She currently resides in the city of Melbourne.
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