The Writer in the Public Arena: Implications of a Poet Laureate for Australia

This year, Australia is set to establish the role of a Poet Laureate, as part of the federal government’s Revive national cultural policy.

What is the relationship between poetry and the public realm—from bards to court poets to laureates?

How will a poet laureateship help shape the reception of Australian poetry at home and abroad?

Professor Holland-Batt talks to these questions, followed by a Q&A session led by Dr Delia Falconer. 

Credits

Professor Sarah Holland-Batt is an award-winning poet, editor and critic. Her books have received a number of Australia’s leading literary awards, including the Stella Prize for her most recent book, The Jaguar, and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry for her second volume, The Hazards. She is also the author of a book of essays on contemporary Australian poetry, Fishing for Lightning, collecting her poetry columns written for The Australian. She is currently a cohost of Julia Gillard’s Book Club on A Podcast of One’s Own, and Professor of Creative Writing at QUT.

Dr Delia Falconer is the author of two novels (The Service of Clouds and The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers) and two works of nonfiction (Sydney and Signs and Wonders: Dispatches from a time of beauty and loss), which have been shortlisted for national and international awards across the categories of fiction, nonfiction, innovation, biography, history and research. She is the Head of Discipline in Creative Writing at UTS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by Impact Studios.