Freed Verse: Poetry and Transformation

Event and Ticketing Details

Dates & Times

Monday 05 November
6:15 PM - 7:30 PM

Location

The Wheeler Centre

176 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

Get directions

Kaveh Akbar has described one of his early adolescent encounters with poetry as profound and possibly fate-changing.

‘It was a total epiphany. Like, practically an angel playing its trumpet in my face. Just a miracle moment of clarity and perfect vision.’

How does poetry do this? How can poetry transform personal perspectives, or even lives? And how can non-traditional means of sharing poetry bring the form to new audiences?

Akbar is one of the brightest rising talents in American poetry. His work has appeared in the New Yorker and Best American Poetry and in two acclaimed collections, Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Portrait of the Alcoholic. For this event, hosted by Neil Morris, he’ll be joined by four accomplished, and very different, local poets – including Morris, Sista Zai Zanda, Abdul Hammoud and Hawiine – each with their own perspectives on teaching, performing and publishing poetry.

Join them for this unique event at the Wheeler Centre – part performance, part discussion – as they explore the spells poetry can cast.

Drinks available for purchase on the night.

Readings will be our bookseller at this event.