Solid Air: Spoken Word

Sara Saleh is an award-winning Arab-Australian poet and long-time campaigner for refugee rights and racial justice who has worked with human rights organisations in Australia and across the Middle East.

Maxine Beneba Clarke is the ABIA and Indie award-winning author of the memoir The Hate Race, the short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the poetry collection Carrying The World, and the picture books The Patchwork Bike, Wide Big World and Fashionista. She is the editor of Best Australian Stories 2017, and Growing Up African in Australia. Maxine is Poet Laureate of The Saturday Paper.

Omar Sakr is a bisexual Arab-Australian poet. His debut collection, These Wild Houses (2017), was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award and the Kenneth Slessor Prize. His poetry has been published in English, Arabic, and Spanish, in numerous journals and anthologies. He placed runner-up in the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, and has also been shortlisted for the ACU Poetry Prize, the Story Wine Prize, and the Fair Australia Poetry Prize. Omar has performed his work nationally and internationally.

Hope One is respected as one of the top female beatboxers in the world. Descending from the Te Ati Haunui-a-Pãpãrangi tribe and the Ngati Maniapoto tribe she is currently the only Maori female professional beatboxer. She began beatboxing as a teenager and made her stage debut in 2004. Her determination to master her craft has built her career as an independent, award-winning, artist. Hope is a multi-disciplinary talent who has supported hip hop artists such as T-Pain, Eve, Naughty by Nature, as well as performed alongside choirs, instrumentalists, dance troupes, acrobats, cabaret shows and more. Hope appeared on Australian Idol, the only female beatboxer ever to do so, and more recently can be found touring the world with international award winning theatre show ‘Hot Brown Honey’.

David Stavanger is a poet, performer, cultural producer and lapsed psychologist. In 2013 he won the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, resulting in the release of The Special (University of Queensland Press), his first full-length collection of poetry which was awarded the 2015 Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. His poem Octonaut was recently short-listed for the 2019 Moth Poetry Prize (Ireland) and his next Australia Council funded collection CASE NOTES is due to come out in 2020. David was Co-Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival (2015-17). He is the Co-Editor of Rabbit Journal's Tense issue, Australian Poetry Journal 8.2 Spoken, Verity La’s spoken word stream Slot Machine and the anthology SOLID AIR: Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word (UQP, 2019). He is also sometimes known as Green Room-nominated spoken weird artist Ghostboy,helping to establish spoken word in QLD whilst featuring at festivals nationally and touring internationally in various iterations. These days he lives between the stage and the page.

Claire G Coleman is a writer from Western Australia. She identifies with the South Coast Noongar people. Her family are associated with the area around Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun. Claire grew up in a Forestry's settlement in the middle of a tree plantation, where her dad worked, not far out of Perth. She wrote her black&write! fellowship-winning manuscript Terra Nullius while travelling around Australia in a caravan. Her latest book is The Old Lie.

Anne-Marie Te Whiu is a Brisbane born Māori descending from the Te Rarawa tribe Northland, Aotearoa on her Father’s side. She is a cultural producer, editor, emerging writer & weaver, most recently having Co-Directed Queensland Poetry Festival (2015-2017), a period known for its inclusive programming and stronger focus on CALD and First Nation voices. She is the co-editor of Solid Air, the first ever Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word Anthology.

Anisa is a nationally recognised spoken word poet, performer, educator and published author. Her poetry has appeared on ABC radio, Triple Z, 4EB Radio and has been performed at the Sydney Opera house, Townsville cultural festival, Horizon festival and the New Globe theater. Anisa is the Queensland Slam Poetry champion 2016 and placed second in the Australian National Slam Poetry finals 2017. She is the co-founder of poetry group Voices of Colour which aims to elevate the voices of young people of colour and encourages them to engage with social justice issues. She was also the winner of the XYZ Innovation in spoken word prize.

Angela Peita is a spoken word performer, workshop facilitator and event producer. She is a founding member and current producer of Ruckus Slam - one of Australia's largest poetry slams and is passionate about creating spaces for live art and community to thrive.
She has been published in print and online, and has performed at festivals and events all over Australia and the United States.

Pascalle Burton is an experimental poet, artist and performer with an interest in conceptual art and cultural theory. Her collection About the Author is Dead is available from Cordite Books and has been shortlisted for the 2019 Mary Gilmore Award. Other projects include UN/SPOOL(with Nathan Shepherdson), 24 HOUR GYM (with Tessa Rose), The Outlandish Watch (with David Stavanger and Nathan Shepherdson) and performing in the band The Stress of Leisure.

Zenobia Frost is a poet based in Brisbane. She won the 2018 Val Vallis Award for her poem “Reality On-Demand”. Her new collection, After the Demolition, is forthcoming with Cordite Books.