Dr Alyson Miller attends a celebration of UNESCO’s World Poetry Day in Geelong.
I recently attended a celebration of World Poetry Day, hosted by Geelong Library and Heritage Centre, to read my work featured in Black Inc’s The Best Australian Poetry 2015. The event was presented by Amanda Johnson and celebrated the work of local poets, including that of fellow Contemporary Histories Research Group members David McCooey and Maria Takolander, and the work of Joan Kerr, Anthony Lynch, and Brendan Ryan.
A decision to proclaim March 21 as World Poetry Day was adopted by UNESCO in 1999 as a way to ‘support linguistic diversity through poetic expression’, but also to encourage a ‘return to the oral tradition of poetry recitals’, and to promote poetry as a valuable cultural medium.
My collection of prose poetry, Dream Animals, was published in 2014 and I have also published short stories and poetry in national and international publications, along with my monograph Haunted by Words: Scandalous Texts in 2013.
My current work includes international research and development of a graphic verse novel with Cassandra Atherton, for which we were awarded a Victorian Arts Grant. In collaboration with artist Phil Day, this project reflects on the anniversary of the first atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
