What We Do
Red Dirt Poetry brings poetry and spoken word to life across regional and remote Australia. From events like The Dirty Word and the biennial Red Dirt Poetry Festival to commissioning and supporting the creation of new works in events such as Eat Read Zine - we create stages and spaces for artists to perform, connect, and grow.
The Dirty Word
The Dirty Word is a regular poetry open-mic. On the first Thursday of each month from April - September we host an accessible poetry night. We invite you to join us, bring your words and share with the community.
Everyone is welcome at The Dirty Word - since 2013 we have been a space for people to get out of the house, come together and connect through poetry. Generously hosted at The Roastery - we have doors and dinner from 6pm and invite you to come eat, hang out and yarn all things poetry before we kick off the poetry at 7pm.
Red Dirt Poetry Festival
Red Dirt Poetry Festival is a 4-day poetry and spoken word festival in Mparntwe/Alice Springs. This festival is an in-person delight with curated events and commissioned work featuring an eclectic mix of some of Australia’s finest established and emerging poets. Feeding into a vibrant and energetic Northern Territory and Australian poetry scene with live events including; presentations, workshops, showcases and exclusive commissioned works to be presented.
Over four days the festival makes our little home and gives poets the opportunity to perform, showcase, develop and network. The festival encourages the community to get involved and take part by attending and/or getting the opportunity to share their own work and develop skills alongside some of Australia's & the Territory's most talented poets.
Workshops
This year, we’re running two separate workshop streams in March at the Alice Springs Town Library. They’ll run on three consecutive Saturdays from March 14, 21 and 28.
Both streams are free, but registration is essential as space is limited (10 max per stream). These workshops were designed as a series, so please remember to sign up for all three weeks.
Emerging 9.30am – 11am | Experimental 11.30am – 1pm
Location Alice Spring Town Library
Emerging Stream
The Emerging stream explores foundational basics and introductory exercises for writing, reading and performing poetry.
Join Spandu Pillarisetty to develop and nurture the use of poetic devices, identify and practise writing within different poetic structures while engaging in a guided writing practice refining your own personal style. Spandu will guide you through learning and practising skills that can then be used to refine different areas of writing poetry and expand the ways in which we express ourselves and the way we see the world.
Experimental Stream
The Experimental stream explores developing new or existing works into performance or installation, for those who want to take it off the page into new spaces.
Join Red Dirt Poetry Festival Artistic Director Laurie May for a three-week process of developing poetry from page to presentation – whether that’s performance, installation or something else. This workshop is for poets who have been writing for a while and have some foundational basics.
Eat Read Zine
Eat Read Zine is a project designed to blend poetry, food and community. Created in 2014 by Laurie May and Lorin Elizabeth, the publication invites poets to come together and draw on memory and experience to create a poem and recipe that draws on the collective experience of food.
These collections are put together with a live performance outcome where the audience is invited in for a multi-sensory event designed to tickle all the senses along with a printed publication.
NT Poetry Slam
Starting in Tennant Creek, the RDP team deliver workshops and host the Barkly poetry slam before heading to Katherine to do the same, then Darwin. We take two winners from Katherine to Darwin to compete in the Top End Final and the two Tennant winners, they come to Alice Springs to compete in the Central Aus finals. A winner from each final heads to Sydney to compete in the nation-wide Australian Poetry Slam.
