Poetry Workshop: David Stavanger – Case Notes—Capturing the Lived Experience

Facilitator

Workshop Title

Day

Date

Time

David Stavanger

Case Notes: Capturing the Lived Experience

Saturday

30 August

9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Description

Anyone who writes about madness with certainty has never been mad, I’m certain of it. Certainty is the strangest thing.

An accessible introductory poetry workshop for anyone looking for some ways to write into their lived experience on their terms, focusing on the mental health space, the framing of absence, reclaiming/repurposing institutional language, and utilising daily absurd details and poetic experimentation to document (and distill) aspects of this shared fragmentary life.

Drawing on his collections Case Notes and The Drop Off, and work producing the MAD Poetry project and co-editing the anthology Admissions: Voices With Mental Health, award-winning poet and former psychologist David Stavanger will lead a series of structured exercises and discussions in a small group setting. Limited places, no previous poetry experience needed.

Biography

David Stavanger is a poet, producer, and lapsed psychologist living on Wodi Wodi Dharawal land. He is the co-editor of Solid Air: Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word (UQP, 2019), Admissions: Voices Within Mental Health (Upswell, 2022), and is the author of Case Notes, which won the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry. His new collection is The Drop Off (Upswell, 2025). David works as an Artistic Director at Red Room Poetry.