Sprocket Roasters’ Resident Poet Announced!
Roses are red, violets are blue, if you love poetry, this will concern you!
Australian Poetry run a fantastic creative opportunity called the Cafe Poet Program - situating budding and established poets in cafes around the country for a six-month residency, providing a creative space to write and perform. The program has been running since 2009, and has thus far placed over 20 poets in cafes all over Australia. This spring, Australian Poetry have teamed up with our local quirky coffee house, Sprocket, to bring the program to Newcastle.
The poet announced to inhabit Sprocket is our very own Mark Liston, who has published poems in an array of anthologies and magazines including the Newcastle Poetry Prize, the Lake Macquarie Prize, Skive magazine, Through the Valley and Semaphore Dancing, Islet and Five Bells. He completed a Hunter Writers Centre mentorship in 2009 and now runs two poetry and a prose writing group within the centre.
The program is the perfect opportunity for Mark to flourish in a creative space – while being supplied free-of-charge with some of the most delicious coffee in town. It also provides a platform for him to give back to the local community. In collaboration with the cafe, poets often organise both large and small-scale artistic events, which not only provide a great meeting spot for other likeminded artists but widen the awareness and fan base of local art and culture.
The program has provided rare opportunities for past poets post-residency, including mentoring RMIT media students and being published in the 2009 edition of Blue Dog: Australian Poetry, not to mention the extensive media coverage the program has received.
Congratulations Mark!
great stuff emma, thanks for the article. I am sure my time with sprocket will be very fruitful for me as a writer and poetry in general. hope to meet you at sprockets for some poetry.