Zalehah Turner is a Sydney based poet, photographer, cultural journalist, and Associate Editor of Rochford Street Review (RSR). Zalehah is currently working on a 30-page intermedia poetry collection entitled, Critical condition, focused on the interstitial threshold between life and death in medical crises based on personal experience. Zalehah holds a BA in Communication with a major in writing and cultural studies from the University of Technology, Sydney where she continues to pursue pushing the boundaries of poetry and multimedia in Honours (Communication- Creative Writing). Critical condition is her Honours Project and the Creative component of her degree at UTS.

Zalehah loves the connection between poetry and images whether they be multimedia or photographic. Reflections of Self is series of poetry and photography that was first exhibited at 107 Projects, Redfern in 2013, and has since been published on the Writing Laboratory website, and displayed in Alice Springs and Moruya thanks to Australian Poetry Café poets Laurie May and Janette Dadd respectively. Interstices, a collection of five poems, one photograph, and two modified medical images, was published on the UTS website, Vertigo, in 2016. As a Featured Writer of Rochford Street Review, four of her poems and photographs connected by concepts of space were published in issue 21.

Zalehah’s poetry has also been projected onto the Federation Square Wall in Melbourne as part of the Overload Poetry Festivals, 2008 and 2009, printed on Salt and Pepper shakers, and published in Sotto (2013), Social Alternatives (2016), Vertigo (2016, 2017) and UTS’s The Empathy Poems Project in connection with Refugee Week this year.

She was co-judge of the New Shoots Poetry Prizes 2016 and published the winning and highly commended poems of the New Shoots Poetry Prize 2016 and the New Shoots Royal Botanic Garden, Poetry Prize 2016 in addition to interviewing the poets in Rochford Street Review.

She has curated many of the Featured Writers for RSR since July 2016, as well as, the artists in issue 20. She has reviewed a wide range of cultural events and interviewed poets for Rochford Street Review and Vertigo in addition to editing and publishing reviews and launch speeches as Associate Editor of RSR.

Debra Adelaide, Associate Professor in Creative Writing at UTS expressed that ‘Hold on’ was “wonderful and moving”.

Award winning Irish poet, Patrick Deeley stated that he was “struck by the quietly impressed images and what you refer to as their ‘liminal loop’, as well as by your exploration of ‘internal space’. I also liked your photographs a lot – they really complement the poems.”

Untitled (Four poems) in Rochford Street Review (2017): https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2017/03/25/zalehah-turner-four-poems/
‘Hold on’ in Empathy Poems (2017): https://empathypoems.squarespace.com/blog/2017/6/2/hold-on
‘Interstices’ in Vertigo (2016): https://utsvertigo.com.au/webexclusives/poetry-feature-interstices/
Reflections of Self on the Writing Laboratory website: http://writinglab.patarmstrong.webfactional.com/portfolio/reflection-of-self/