The Australian Poetry Festival 'Inventing the Tradition' 3-5 September

The seventh Australian Poetry Festival : 3-5th September ‘Inventing the Tradition’

Announcing the program for ‘Inventing the Tradition’ the seventh Australian Poetry Festival to be presented by the Poets Union.

Inventing the Tradition is designed to be challenging and, above all, to be entertaining and stimulating. It is a festival not a conference but it has the serious aim of investigating the relationship between the mainstream and the margins, between tradition and the avant-garde. Poets will be reading from their own work but they will be contextualising their readings by reference to poets whom they admire and by briefly mentioning the theories, traditions (or anti-traditions) from which they write. Readings will mix ‘n match poets from different aesthetic theories and practices to expose the audience to different ways of thinking about poetry. It is hoped you will hear poets and ideas that you may not have met before in Sydney.

We are pleased that the Judith Wright Memorial Lecture will be delivered this year by Chris Wallace-Crabbe. Chris is one of Australia’s most respected poets and academics. He is also Chair of the Australian Poetry Centre and Interim Co-Chair of Australian Poetry.

Papers from the festival will be published in a special edition of Five Bells towards the end of the year. They will make a significant contribution to discussions about the nature and scope of contemporary poetry in Australia and spread the ideas beyond the festival’s specific time and place.

Event: Inventing the Tradition - the seventh Australian Poetry Festival
Dates: Friday 3rd September – Sunday 5th September
Time: between 10 am — 5:30pm, Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 September.
Location: Central Sydney festival events take place in Kings Cross over 3, 4 and 5 September.

The cocktail party: will be held at The Sugar Mill on Friday 3 September
Date: Friday 3rd September
Time: 7 pm - 9 pm, Friday 3 September.
Venue: in the cocktail bar of the Sugarmill Hotel,
Address: 33-37 Darlinghurst Road,
Kings Cross

Main festival events: will take place in the Rex Centre at Kings Cross.
Address: 58A Macleay Street
Kings Cross (entrance across the square from the El Alamein fountain and next to the post office, near Baroda Street),

Accommodation: Festival guests are staying at the De Vere Hotel,
Address: 44 - 46 Macleay Street, Potts Point.
Accommodation, restaurants, cafes and pub are plentiful.

A copy of the program and a booking form is attached (below)