Almanac Poetry: Poets’ Lunch – Meet our poets

 

With The Footy Almanac Poets’ Lunch on Friday 13 June fast approaching, the following poets are our special guests who will be reading and discussing their poetry.

 

Damian Balassone

 

 

Damian Balassone is the author of three volumes of poetry, including Strange Game in a Strange Land and the forthcoming collection of short poems and epigrams Love is a Weird Cat.

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Robyn Black

 

 

Robyn Black is a poet, memoirist and short story writer who has twice won the Open Poetry section of the Joseph Furphy prize and then annually judged this section of the Award until it ceased in 2019. She is the co-ordinator of the new Furphy Literary Award ($15,000 1st Prize), an annual award which commenced in 2020. She also judges the Furphy Literary Award Youth Poetry section. Former president of the Goulburn Valley Writers Group Inc., she is also a former editor of Tamba Magazine and has been published in a number of literary magazines. She longlisted the 2011 Montral International Poetry Competition, shortlisted in the 2024 Margaret Hazzard Short Story Award and received a Special Commendation in the  2024 Scarlet Stiletto. Robyn is the Regional Ambassador – Goulburn Valley Region – for Writers Victoria. Her first collection of poetry – No Straight Lines published by Ginninderra Press – was released in October 2021.

 

 

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Kevin Densley

 

 

 

Kevin Densley is an Australian poet and writer-in-general. His fifth book-length poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws … I’m Feeling Too Indolent, was published in late 2023 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, which was published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.

 

 

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Haiku Bob (Rob Scott)

 

 

 

Rob Scott (aka Haiku Bob) is one of Australia’s most loved haiku poets. He has published 4 collections of haiku and won numerous awards for his work. He recently co-edited ‘Under the Same Moon’, an anthology of Australian haiku. He is the current Vice-President of the Australian Haiku Society.

 

 

 

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Michael Pardy

 

 

 

Michael grew up with a book in his hand, studied literature and linguistics at University of Melbourne and made a career out of weaving words together. He has written user manuals, help text, emails, stage plays, novels, short stories, comic books, and always poems. He is currently working on a volume of golf poetry exclusively.

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James Walton

 

 

 

James Walton is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers. He has been shortlisted for the ACU National Poetry Prize, the MPU International Poetry Prize, The James Tate Prize, and the Ada Cambridge Prize. Five collections of his poetry have been published since 2015. He was nominated for ‘The Best of the Net’ 2019, and for the Pushcart Prize 2021 and 2023/24, and is a winner of the Uncollected Press Poetry Chapbook competition.  He also writes short stories and flash fiction. He was a farm labourer, a librarian, but mostly a public sector union official, resigning at the age of 60 to begin writing creatively.

 

 

 

 

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