P76 issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey was launched as part of the 2024 Sonic Poetry Festival on Tuesday evening 27 August 2024 at Bergy Bandroom, Brunswick, Victoria.
Rochford Press, the publisher of Rochford Street Review, published and launched P76 Issue 8 as part on the inaugural Sonic Poetry Festival in 2023. About 6 weeks before the 2024 Sonic Festival Angela Costi contacted Linda Adair and Mark Roberts (editors of Rochford Street Review & P76 magazine) and suggested they take part in the 2024 Sonic Poetry Festival. A decision was made to proceed and, as ‘Poetry that sounds like all of us’ was the Sonic theme, Linda developed the complementary theme of ‘The poetries of place/displacement/ diaspora/odyssey’. A call for submissions was made and we were overwhelmed with poems. Somehow, Linda edited, designed the print version in world record time and had it produced in the Blue Mountains. Angela organised the venue and took care of the logistics. Mark and Linda also started identifying work that would appear in the on-line version of P76.
It all led up to the launch in Melbourne of P76 Issue 9:The poetries of place/displacement/ diaspora/odyssey. Fortunately there were two amazing festival photographers (Brendan Bonsack and Michael Reynolds) to capture the readers and Es Foong /Waffle Irongirl recorded the launch for the Spoken Word program on 3CR Community Radio (the complete recording of the reading can be accessed here).
Below we feature some of the images and recordings from the night, together with links to the on-line journal. Our thanks to our collaborator Angela Costi, whose assistance organising the launch was invaluable. Particular thanks also to the wonderful photographers, Michael Reynolds and Brendan Bonsack, who created an important and stunning visual record of the launch. This record was further enhanced by Es Foong /Waffle Irongirl recording a number of the readers for 3CR. A big final thank you to all the contributors and everyone who turned up to the Bergy Bandroom on the night.
Copies of the printed journal can be purchased from Rochford Cottage Bookshop
___________________________
Jeanine Leane
Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri writer, poet, author and critic who lives and works on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri peoples of the East Kulin Nation. Her poetry, prose and critiques have been published widely in literary journals such as Sydney Review of Books, Overland, Westerly and the Australian Book Review.
Jeanine Lee appears in both the print and on-line editions of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
Listen to Jeanine Leane reading ‘After the Silence the Echo’ from the launch. (Audio recorded by Waffle Irongirl for Spoken Word on 3CR Community Radio.
**
Alison J Barton
Alison J Barton is widely published in Australian and international literary journals. Her poetry has been recognised in numerous prizes. In both 2022 and 2023, Alison’s work appeared in Best of Australian Poems. She was the inaugural winner of the 2023 University of Cambridge First Nations Writer-in-Residence Fellowship. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Not Telling, will be published this year by Puncher & Wattmann.
Alison J Barton appears in both the print and on-line editions of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
Listen to Alison J Barton reading ‘One Hand’ and ‘Buried Light’ from the launch. (Audio recorded by Waffle Irongirl for Spoken Word on 3CR Community Radio.
**
Lisa Collyer
Lisa Collyer is a writer and educator in Boorloo, Western Australia. She is the author of the poetry collection, How To Order Eggs Sunny Side Up, which was short-listed for The Dorothy Hewett Award and is published by Gazebo Books/Life Before Man. She is widely published and was a recent writer in residence for City of Swan, Katharine Susannah Prichard Writer’s Centre, The National Trust of WA and WA Poets Inc.
Lisa Collyer’s poem ‘La vera pizza’ appeared in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
**
Planning J Saw
Planning J Saw is an Australian-born, Singapore-raised, and Malaysian-heritage young artist. Navigating his roots and branches has been perhaps the only constant in his life. Therefore, he endeavours to speak firmly to himself and, by extension, to communities through poetry. The P76 launch was his first public reading.
Planning J Saw’s poem ‘Bird-Cage’ appeared in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
**
Nadia Niaz
Nadia Niaz is the author of The Djinn Hunters (2023, Rabbit Press) and the founder and editor of the Australian Multilingual Writing Project. Her work investigates multilingual creative expression, the practicalities and politics of translation, and language use among globally mobile cohorts. She teaches creative writing at the University of Melbourne.
Nadia Niaz’s poem ‘Motia’ appears in the print edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey. The limited print-run hardcopy edition is available from the Rochford Cottage Bookshop.
Listen to Nadia Niaze reading ‘Motia’ and ‘The Djinn Hunters’ from the launch. (Audio recorded by Waffle Irongirl for Spoken Word on 3CR Community Radio.
**
Isi Unikowski
Isi Unikowski lives in Canberra, Australia. He has been widely published in Australia, including Best of Australian Poems 2022; while in the US his poems have been published in the Atlanta Review, Avalon Review, New York Quarterly, Poetica, Slate and Verse Wisconsin. His first collection, Kintsugi, was published in 2022 by Puncher & Wattman, New South Wales.
Isi Unikowski poem ‘Coming back’ appeared in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
**
Jeltje Fanoy
Jeltje Fanoy has been involved with poetry and poetry small presses in Melbourne since the nineteen seventies. She’s been exploring diaspora themes throughout her writing since the publication of her first collection Living in Aboriginal Australia in 1988. Her published work includes five collections of poetry.
Jeltje Fanoy appears in both the print and on-line editions of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
**
Glen Hunting
Glen Hunting is a poet based in Mparntwe, Arrernte country (Alice Springs, NT). Among other things, he writes about notions of home, estrangement, and cultural value, and the hopes and frustrations surrounding reciprocity, allyship, and empowerment. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Verandah, Plumwood Mountain, Blue Bottle Journal, Portside Review, London Grip New Poetry, and elsewhere. He received a 2024 Varuna/Arts NT residential fellowship and was joint winner of the 2024 Liquid Amber Emerging Poet Prize.
Glen Hunting’s poem ‘Waterhole’ appears in the print edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey which is available from Rochford Cottage Bookshop.
Glen Hunting’s poem ‘Red Centre Villanelle’ appears in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9.
**
es foong
Es Foong / Waffle Irongirl is a poet and performer living on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. They write about the strange geographies of belonging and the power of the pause to offer alternative ways of being. Their debut poetry collection from Recent Work Press is called Clot and Marrow. They live online at waffleirongirl.com.
es foong’s poem ‘you do not even know my name’ appears in the print edition of P76 Issue 9. The print edition of is available from the Rochford Cottage Bookshop.
**
Linda Adair
Linda Adair is a poet and a publisher of Rochford Press, and co-editor of Rochford Street Review and a (re)emerging artist. Her Irish ancestors arrived at Port Jackson from the early to mid 1800s to escape the English occupation of Eire and then the food shortage which was weaponised and rebranded as the Great Irish Famine. Born on Darug Land in the era of ‘The Great Australian Silence’ about what was really occurred during colonisation, Adair writes about women and men marginalised by history and environmental concerns. Her debut poetry collection The Unintended Consequences of the Shattering was published in 2020 by Melbourne Poets Union.
Linda Adair’s poem ‘Go tell the bees / dul abair leis na beacha’ appears in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
**
Peter Bakowski
Peter Bakowski is a ‘bounding gazelle in the long grass of poetry’ who has been writing poems for 42 years, sometimes with a pencil, sometimes with a Waterman fountain pen, sometimes typing one-fingered on the keyboard of a second-hand MacBook Air. His poems continue to appear in literary journals worldwide.
Peter Bakowski’s poem ‘On Suvarov Atoll’ appears in the print edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey. The print edition of is available from the Rochford Cottage Bookshop.
Listen to Peter Bakowski reading ‘On Suvarov Atoll’ from the launch. (Audio recorded by Waffle Irongirl for Spoken Word on 3CR Community Radio.
**
Amanda Anastasi
Amanda Anastasi is a poet from Melbourne’s west and the author of Taking Apart the Bird Trap (Recent Work Press, 2024) and The Inheritors (Black Pepper, 2021). Her work has appeared in Australian Poetry Journal, Griffith Review, Cordite, Rochford Street Review, The Massachusetts Review and Best Australian Science Writing 2021 and 2022. She was Poet in Residence at the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub (2019-2022) and has been the recipient of a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship and a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Grant to write at the Great Barrier Reef.
Amanda Anastasi’s poem, ‘The Missing’, appears in the print edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey. The print edition of is available from the Rochford Cottage Bookshop.
Listen to Amanda Anastasi reading ‘The Missing’ from the launch. (Audio recorded by Waffle Irongirl for Spoken Word on 3CR Community Radio.
**
Ali Alizadeh
Ali Alizadeh is a writer who lives in Melbourne. He teaches at Monash University.
Ali Alizadeh’s poem, ‘Murrambeena’, appears in the print edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey. The print edition of is available from the Rochford Cottage Bookshop.
Ali Alizadeh’s poem ‘The Tale of Many Cities’ appears in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
Listen to Ali Alizadeah reading ‘Murrambbena from the launch. (Audio recorded by Waffle Irongirl for Spoken Word on 3CR Community Radio.
**
Angela Costi
Angela Costi is known as Αγγελικη Κωστη among the Cypriot diaspora, which is her heritage and ancestry. She lives on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung unceded land. She is the author of five poetry collections. Her most recent chapbook is Adversarial Practice, Cordite Poetry Review, 2024.
Angela Costi poem ‘Dancing on Shards’ appeared in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
**
Alex Skovron
Alex Skovron is the author of seven collections of poetry, a prose novella, The Poet (2005), and a book of short stories, The Man who Took to his Bed (2017). His volume of new and selected poems, Towards the Equator (2014), was shortlisted in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. His work has been translated into a number of languages, and he has co-authored book-length translations of two Czech poets: Jiří Orten and Vladimír Holan. His most recent book of poetry is Letters from the Periphery (2021). A new collection of short narratives in prose and verse is forthcoming from Puncher & Wattmann. He was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award for achievements in poetry and prose and his lifelong support for writers and writing in Melbourne and beyond.
Alex Skovron’s poem, ‘Trigger Logic’, appears in the print edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey. The print edition of is available from the Rochford Cottage Bookshop.
Alex Skovron’s poem ‘The Suitcase’ appears in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9.
Listen to Alex Skovron’ reading ‘Trigger Logic’ from the launch. (Audio recorded by Waffle Irongirl for Spoken Word on 3CR Community Radio.
**
Edward Caruso
Edward Caruso is based in Naarm, Australia. Recently, he has been published in A Voz Limpia, Live Encounters, TEXT, Unusual Work and Well-Known Corners: Poetry on the Move. His second collection of poems, Blue Milonga, was published by Hybrid Publishers in January 2019. In August 2019 he featured on Radio 3CR’s Spoken Word program. In 2024, he co-judged the Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize.
Edward Caruso’s poem ‘Italy from Italy’ appears in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
**
Andrew Brion
Andrew is a Naarm/Melbourne poet who ruminates on politics, travel and the human condition. He published his first book of poetry, Soul Moves, in 2018 and has had poems published in a number of other magazines, anthologies and outlets including Blue Nib, Bowen Street Press, Pocketry, n SCRIBE and dSCRIBE. Andrew is occasionally active within the Spoken Word community in Melbourne.
Andrew Brion’s poem ‘Italy from Italy’ appears in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
**
Patricia Sykes
Patricia Sykes is a poet and librettist. Her poems and collections have received various awards and have featured on the ABC’s Poetica and The Spirit of Things. Her collaborations with composer Liza Lim have been performed in Australia, Paris, Germany, Russia, New York and the UK. She was Asialink Writer in Residence Malaysia, 2006. A song cycle by Andrew Aronowicz, based on her poetry collection, The Abbotsford Mysteries, is available as podcast.
Patricia Sykes poem ‘Heavenly Dancer’ appears in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
- Patricia Sykes – ‘Heavenly Dancer’
**
Helena Spyrou
Helena Spyrou a writer of Cypriot and Greek heritage lives in Melbourne on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people. Her stories and poems have been published in anthologies, journals and magazines including Meanjin, Going Down Swinging and Grieve.
Helna Spyrou’s poem ‘Chiaroscuro’, appears in the print edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey. The print edition of is available from the Rochford Cottage Bookshop.
**
Eliza Dune Daiza
Eliza Dune Daiza’s poem ‘To whom it may concern’, appears in the print edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey. The print edition of is available from the Rochford Cottage Bookshop.
**
Mark Roberts
Mark Roberts’ poem ‘Returns’ appeared in the on-line edition of P76 Issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey.
**
___________________________________
Having published 9 Issues since 1983, P76 is best described as an occasional hard copy poetry journal published by Rochford Press.
P76 began its life in 1983 in an upstairs room of a crumbling terrace house at 22 Rochford Street Erskineville. Mark Roberts and Adam Aitken were it’s first editors and Issue 1 came on in the Spring of 1983. The first four issues were gesternered and included brilliant silk screened wrap around covers by Gina Ghioni. From issue 5 the magazine took various printed forms. Linda Adair and Mark Roberts edited Issues 5 and 6, while Pete Spence edited Issue 7, which was a special Cornelis Vleeskens tribute issue. Issue 8 and 9 have been published as part of the Melbourne Sonic Poetry Festival.
Who knows when and where Issue 10 will emerge…
Rochford Street Review 