OUTspoken (Queer Poetry)

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This event is supported by Red Room Poetry as part of Poetry Month 2024.

OUTspoken is a highlight of the Perth Poetry Festival. Celebrating the vibrant voices of the LGBTIQA+ community, this event showcases the rich diversity of queer verse. Hosted by Scott-Patrick Mitchell, a renowned poet known for their dynamic performances and passionate advocacy for queer literature, OUTspoken 2024 will feature:

• Neisha Phipps
• Liam Blackford
• Caitlin Ellis
• Anna Quercia-Thomas
• Gabrielle Everall

plus open mic

OUTspoken offers an evening of powerful and evocative poetry. The Centre for Stories provides an inclusive and welcoming environment, fostering a space where creativity and expression thrive. This event is a testament to the power of poetry in bringing communities together and highlighting diverse voices in the literary arts.

Gabrielle Everall has released her 4th book of poetry this year through Collective Effort Press. It is called Venus Without Furs. It is a feminist rewriting of Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

Anna Quercia-Thomas is a queer Hispanic-American writer and academic currently based in Western Australia. She writes poetry and speculative fiction about found family, queer romance, and connection in dark times. Her work is featured in New Words Press, Overland, and an upcoming issue of Westerly. She is the third place winner of the 2023 International Proverse Poetry Prize.

Liam Blackford (@ravemondfracas) is a West Australian poet and writer working on Whadjuk Noongar country. Strictly formal and aesthetic, his poetry concerns truth and reality, power and control, and the limits of human experience and knowledge. He has published in Mingled Voices, Tentacle, Creatrix, Apocalypse Confidential, and No More Poetry.

Neisha Phipps is a neurodivergent poet, painter, and performance artist who enjoys clouds, maths, finger painting, pelicans, and collecting rubbish. They often find themselves lost in Poetry Land, soaring through the sky like a kite (with exceptionally long shoelaces tied to the ground for safety), singing with birds, and taking catnaps on rainbows. Neisha works in the disability arts sector and is passionate about access and inclusion for everyone.

Caitlin Ellis is an emerging queer writer from Perth/Boorloo. Her debut poetry collection, Worm Food and Bone Sand (2022), tenderly explores concepts of identity, growth, trauma, and transformation. When not penning poems, one can find her reading, navigating life and death in the ICU, and perpetually chasing assignment deadlines.

Scott-Patrick Mitchell (SPM) was the recipient of the 2022 Red Room Poetry Fellowship and the 2023 XYZ Prize for Innovation in Spoken Word. In 2024, they were Highly Commended in The Blake Poetry Prize. Mitchell’s debut poetry collection Clean (Upswell Publishing, 2022) was shortlisted for The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, The WA Premier’s Book Awards, and The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.