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.

Dates: Friday 3rd September – Sunday 5th September
Time: between 10am — 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: 7pm - 9pm, 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.

Scroll down the next three pages for an outline of the program...

INVENTING THE TRADITION – The 7th Australian Poetry Festival

Friday 3 September
Cocktail Party Opening
7pm — 9pm
Sugarmill Hotel Cocktail Bar
33 — 37 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross

Official opening by the Hon Virginia Judge, NSW Minister for the Arts
Performances by Iggy McGovern,
Michelle Cahill
Michelle Dicinoski
Liz MacNamara
and a step back in time with poems by Kenneth Slessor set to music and pre­sented by Laureate Productions (www.laureateproductions.com.au)

Full Festival Bookings: The Cocktail Party is included in the $80 Full Festival Pass
Separate Cocktail Party Ticket: $30
(includes food; drinks to be purchased at bar prices)

RSVP All cocktail party bookings must be made by Friday 20 August to help with catering.
Poets Union Inc PO Box 755
Potts Point NSW 1335

Email: info@poets union.com
www.poetsunion.com
(02) 9357 6602 (Tue and Wed only)

Scroll down the next two pages for an outline Saturday and Sunday programs...

Saturday 4 September

10:00 — 10:45 Launch of the Poets Union members’ anthology
Launch of the Australian Poetry Centre’s Father’s Day Anthology Dear Dad

10:45 — 12:00 News That Stays News: Varieties of Relevance
Emily Ballou, Yvette Holt, Marcelle Freiman
This session sponsored by Macquarie University

12:00 — 12:15 Morning Tea

12:15 — 1:30 What I Want: A Personal Poetics
David Brooks, L K Holt, Steve Evans
This session sponsored by the Australian Catholic University

1:30 — 2:30 Lunch

2:30 — 3:45 Pushing Boundaries: Junction and Disjunction
Michael Farrell, Paul Magee, Candy Royalle
This session sponsored by the University of Western Sydney

4:00 — 4:45 Open To The World
Iggy McGovern, Jill Jones

4:45 — 5:30 Presentations:
Poets Union Poetry Prize
The Scanlon Poetry Prize for Indigenous Poetry
The Blake Poetry Prize Poets Union Youth Fellowships.6

Scroll down to the next page for an outline of the Sunday program...

Sunday 5 September

10:00 — 11:00 To be Translated: A Mandarin / English Collaboration
Martin Harrison, Shaoyang Zhang, Ouyang Yu, Judith Beveridge, Stephen Edgar, Robert Gray
This session sponsored by the University of Technology Sydney

11:00 — 12:15 The Lyric: Possibilities and Limitations
John Bennett, Lucy Dougan, Bonny Cassidy
This session sponsored by the University of Sydney

12:15 — 12:30 Morning Tea

12:30 — 1:45 The Kings Cross Reading
David Malouf, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Ania Walwicz
This session sponsored by the Australian Society of Authors

1:45 — 2:45 Lunch

2:45 — 4:00 Can You Hear Me?: Making An Impression
Ouyang Yu, Angela Rockel, B R Dionysius
This session sponsored by the University of New South Wales

4:00 — 4:45 Judith Wright Memorial Lecture
Delivered by Chris Wallace-Crabbe

4:45 Closing Remarks: Brook Emery