Queensland Poetry Festival is the flagship program of Queensland Poetry one of Australia's premier organisations for all things poetry. It exists to support and promote a poetry culture in Queensland and Australia, embracing the wide possibility of poetic expression in all of its forms. As well as hosting an annual festival, Queensland Poetry also produces a number of signature projects and programs throughout the year.
QPF was originally founded by Brett Dionysius in 1997, an organisational role he continued in until 2001 when it was being run as the Subverse: Queensland Poetry Festival. [1] Queensland Poetry Festival then continued under a number of Directors and Managers including Rosanna Licari (2002–2003) and [2] Graham Nunn (2004–2007) [3] whilst becoming the incorporated entity Queensland Poetry Festival Inc in 2007. Since this new inception QPF has been directed by Julie Beveridge (2008–2009), Sarah Gory (2011–2014), [4] Co-Directors Anne-Marie Te Whiu and David Stavanger (2015–2017), [5] Lucy Nelson (2018–19), and Shane Strange (2022-)
In 2016 an event was held at Government House, Brisbane as a Celebration of the Queensland Poetry Festival's 20th Anniversary. In a speech delivered by His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC as Administrator of the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, he said:
Not only poetry, but also poets, have enjoyed special status. They have been credited with exceptional insight into our existence, coupled with great expressive powers ... for twenty years, the Queensland Poetry Festival has been a wonderful champion of the enormous cultural wealth that resides in poetry, particularly our own, and of poetry's capacity to enrich our Queensland communities and our State's culture. [6]
QPF's 2017 Arts Queensland Poet in Residence, award-winning Mvskoke/USA poet and musician Joy Harjo said:
I have travelled to festivals, performances and residencies all over the world, from the U.S., to Europe, to India, to South America. The Queensland Poetry Festival residency remains one of the most memorable. I was warmly welcomed and taken care of from even before I arrived, then throughout the residency. Every detail was covered. I encountered a generosity of spirit in the sponsors and participants of each workshop, performance, and of course, the community. It was apparent that the Queensland Poetry Festival had made a beloved place in the community, through the efforts of its leadership and staff. They have a committed fan, in me.
The 2016 festival saw the emergence of a strong commitment to including more diverse and Indigenous voices including the creation of the Indigenous Poet in Residence (Sam Wagan Watson 2016 and Ali Cobby Eckermann 2017) [7] & the inaugural Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize. Queensland Poetry maintains its commitment to supporting voices of Country.
During the Covid pandemic (2020, 2021), Queensland Poetry switched to providing a number of online programs in lieu of a live festival. In June 2022, the first live festival was held in Brisbane/Meanjin with the theme 'Emerge'. It was the first festival held live since 2019.
Queensland Poetry administers and manages a year-long program of poetry workshops, programs, events, and competitions. These include: three Arts Queensland Poetry Awards in the Val Vallis Poetry Award, Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and the XYZ Prize for Excellence in Spoken Word (introduced in 2015), the Arts Queensland Poet in Residence, SlammED! and the Australian Poetry Slam QLD Heats & Final. [8] Queensland Poetry also partners on programs such as the monthly VOLTA event at Brisbane Square Library.
The current structure of Queensland Poetry includes a Management Committee, a General Manager, Artistic Director, Events and Marketing Manager and program coordinators.. In 2016 Queensland Poetry was successful for the first time in applying for Organisational Funding for Operational/Staff costs for the 2017–2020 period via Arts Queensland. Since 2007 QP has been an incorporated community organisation with a dedicated and growing audience, with a strong tradition of volunteerism and known increasingly for celebrating poetry in all of its forms. QP currently has office space under a tenancy agreement with the Queensland Writers Centre, in the State Library of Queensland.
In 2016 the Queensland Poetry Festival introduced an Indigenous program, which included the inaugural Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize. [9]
The prize was named in honour of Aboriginal poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, with the permission of her family and after consultation with Quandamooka Festival. It is the only open-age Indigenous poetry prize for an unpublished poem. [10] [11] Past winners have included Brenda Saunders, Andrew Booth & Julie Janson, Jeanine Leane, and Sachem Parkin-Owens. [12]
In its history the festival has featured some of the world's finest poets, spoken word artists singer/songwriters and other artists including Mark Doty (US), Ali Cobby Eckermann, Joy Harjo (US), Jennifer Maiden and Maxine Beneba Clarke in 2017; Tracy K. Smith (US), Jeet Thayil (India), Lionel Fogarty, Ivan Coyote (Canada) and Tishani Doshi (India) in 2016; Kate Durbin (US), Les Murray, MacGillivray (Scotland) and David Brooks in 2015; Warsan Shire (UK) and Christian Bok (2014); Shane Rhodes (2013 – Canada); Angela Rawlings (2012 – Canada); Jacob Polley (2011 – UK) Emily XYZ (2010 – USA) [13] and August Kleinzahler (2010 – USA), [14] Hinemoana Baker (NZ) and Neil Murray (2009) [15] Shane Koyczan (2007 – Canada), [16] Chris Bailey (2005 – The Saints), [17] and Dave Graney (2006). [18]
Oodgeroo Noonuccal ( UUD-gə-roo NOO-nə-kəl; born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, later Kath Walker was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, artist and educator, who campaigned for Aboriginal rights. Noonuccal was best known for her poetry, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse.
Musgrave Park is a park in South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The park is bordered by Edmonstone, Russell, and Cordelia Streets, and Brisbane State High School, and has an area of 63,225 square metres (680,550 sq ft). The park is of cultural significance to Aboriginal Australians.
Donald Bruce Dawe was an Australian poet and academic. Some critics consider him one of the most influential Australian poets of all time.
Denis P. Walker, also known as Bejam Kunmunara Jarlow Nunukel Kabool, was an Aboriginal Australian activist. He was a major figure in the civil rights and land rights movements of the 1970s and continued to fight for a treaty between the Australian Government and Aboriginal nations through the 1990s and until his death.
Lionel Fogarty, also published as Lionel Lacey, is an Indigenous Australian poet and political activist.
Samuel Wagan Watson is a contemporary Indigenous Australian poet.
Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold that honor. She was also only the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to have served three terms. Harjo is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv. She is an important figure in the second wave of the literary Native American Renaissance of the late 20th century. She studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, completed her undergraduate degree at University of New Mexico in 1976, and earned an MFA degree at the University of Iowa in its creative writing program.
Donna Tusiata Avia is a New Zealand poet and children's author. She has been recognised for her work through receiving a 2020 Queen's Birthday Honour and in 2021 her collection The Savage Coloniser won the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The Savage Coloniser and her previous work Wild Dogs Under My Skirt have been turned into live stage plays presented in a number of locations.
The Val Vallis Award is an Australian poetry award named in honour of the Queensland poet Val Vallis (1916–2009). Val Vallis was a lyric poet who lectured in English and Philosophy at the University of Queensland. In 2002 the then Arts Minister, Matt Foley, announced "...the naming of a major poetry award, the first Arts Queensland Val Vallis Award for Unpublished Poetry to commemorate Val’s contribution to poetry in Queensland."
The Quandamooka people are Aboriginal Australians who live around Moreton Bay in Southeastern Queensland. They are composed of three distinct tribes, the Nunukul, the Goenpul and the Ngugi, and they live primarily on Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands, that form the eastern side of the bay. Many were pushed out of their lands when the English colonial government established a penal colony near there in 1824. Each group has its own language. A number of local food sources are utilised by the tribes.
Nakkiah Lui is an Australian actor, writer and comedian. She is a young leader in the Aboriginal Australian community.
Ellen van Neerven is an Aboriginal Australian writer, educator and editor. Their first work of fiction, Heat and Light (2013), won several awards, and in 2019 Van Neerven won the Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Award. Their second collection of poetry, Throat (2020), won three awards at the 2021 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, including Book of the Year.
Ali Cobby Eckermann is an Australian poet of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. She is a Yankunytjatjara woman born on Kaurna land in South Australia.
Oodgeroo is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland. It was created in the 2017 redistribution, and was won at that year's election by Mark Robinson. It was named after Indigenous activist and poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal.
Indigenous Australian literature is the fiction, plays, poems, essays and other works authored by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.
Claire G. Coleman is a Wirlomin-Noongar-Australian writer and poet, whose 2017 debut novel, Terra Nullius won the Norma K Hemming Award. The first draft of resulted in Coleman being awarded the State Library of Queensland's 2016 black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship.
The First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) is the peak advocacy body for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writers, storytellers and poets in Australia.
Yvette Henry Holt is a contemporary Australian poet, essayist, academic, researcher and editor, she heralds from the Bidjara, Yiman and Wakaman nations of Queensland. The youngest child born to prominent Queensland Elder, Albert Holt and Marlene Holt. Holt came to prominence with her first multi-award-winning collection of poetry, Anonymous Premonition, published by the University of Queensland Press in 2008. Since 2009-2021 Holt has lived and worked in Central Australia among the Central and Western Arrernte peoples of Hermansburg and Alice Springs.
Rae White is a Brisbane-based poet and writer. White is non-binary and the founding editor of the online periodical #EnbyLife: Journal for non-binary and gender diverse creatives. White's 2017 poetry collection Milk Teeth won the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, was commended in the 2018 Anne Elder Award, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. Their poetry and writing has been published in the Australian Poetry Journal, Capricious, Cordite, Meanjin, Overland, and Rabbit.
Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri poet and activist from southwest New South Wales. She is an associate professor in creative writing at the University of Melbourne.
