Join us on Tuesday, September 17th at 7:30pm for Sappho’s monthly poetry night with AVANT GAGA #69, featuring special guests Rae Armantrout (USA), Kate Lilley, A.J. Carruthers, Liam Ferney and Roslyn Orlando, plus a short open mic section
Rae Armantrout is the award-winning author of eighteen books of poetry, including Finalists, Conjure, and most recently Go Figure. Her collection Versed won a National Book Award. a National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize. Her work has appeared in countless anthologies including Best American Poetry, In The American Tree and Language Poetries.
Kate Lilley is a queer poet-scholar and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. Her three books of poetry are Versary, Ladylike and, most recently, Tilt, winner of the Victorian Premier’s Award. She has published extensively on the history of poetry and poetics and is the editor of Margaret Cavendish: The Blazing World and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) and Dorothy Hewett: Selected Poems (UWAP).
A.J. Carruthers is the 2024 recipient of the Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. His latest book is Literary History and Avant-Garde Poetics in the Antipodes: Languages of Invention, and he’s written 3 volumes of the life-long long poem Axis, the latest being Axis Z Book 3.
Liam Ferney’s most recent collection Hot Take (Hunter Publishing) was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. His previous volumes include Content (Hunter Publishing) and Boom (Grande Parade Poets). He is a public affairs manager, poet and aspiring left-back living in Brisbane with his wife and daughter.
Roslyn Orlando is an artist, writer and gardener based in Melbourne in Wurundjeri Country. Her writing and artistic works explore relationships between language, history and technology. She studied journalism at the University of Sydney, and Arts Politics at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. Ekhō, her first book of poems, was published this year by Upswell Publishing, and will be released across North America in 2025, through Soft Skull Press.