Founded in 2015, the University of Canberra’s Poetry on the Move is a fully curated festival, run as a major initiative of the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra. The CCCR’s objectives through the festival are to promote poetry as a vibrant art form through the engagement with international, national and local poetry communities.

During what has been an extraordinary and challenging time since the onset of COVID in 2020, many people have turned to poetry for solace and comfort. Poetry also helps to form a sense of community among those who find and make meaning in this way.

This year’s event will be run mostly in person with some online events rounding out the festival. We plan to meet once again in the beautiful venue that is the Gorman Arts Centre in Braddon, ACT, face-to-face for five days in September (22-26). Here, we will engage in poetry locally, nationally, and internationally through readings and panel discussions that have been designed around the theme. We will also offer workshops--some face-to-face--but others mostly online, in the festival fringe -- during the weeks before and after the festival proper. We also will offer readings and other exciting events during the weeks before and after the festival proper. 

This year’s theme is Lyrical Manoeuvres. The idea for this theme came as the world was stretching outwards again after many months of lockdowns and the Poetry on the Move committee was thinking about all of the ways that poetry helps us to move and manoeuver through the world(s) around us. We thought about the way that poetry and music work together, the ways that poetry keeps language lithe in both the imagination and in the physical world even when we're forced into stillness. 

Please join us in any way you can – online or in person. Please bring your own questions and ideas about maneuverings. Visit our pages, view our recordings, and, if you are able to attend in person, a seat in Gorman House awaits you.

Yours in poetry,

Kimberly
Director, Poetry on the Move