The Verb in Australia

BBC Contains Strong Language 2024 took place in Sydney Australia in partnership with Red Room Poetry and ABC Australia . This special edition of The Verb was recorded in State Library of New South Wales n front of a audience as part of the festival. With guests Eileen Chong the first Asian Australian poet to be on the school syllabus, who came to Australia from Singapore in 2007. Singer songwriter Paul Kelly - described as the Laureate of Australia - whose latest project sets the work of poets as varied as Shakespeare and Les Murray to music . Omar Sakr - the son of Turkish and Lebanesemigrants whose collection The Lost Arabs won the prestigious Prime Ministers Literary Award . Ali Cobby Eckermann - a First Nation poet who only met her birth mother as an adult. She, her mother and grandmother were all stolen , tricked or adopted away from their families . Her poetry talks powerfully about this personal and national story .Recorded with an acknowledgement of the Gadigal people the traditional custodians of the land where this edition of The Verb took place Produced by Susan Roberts