Five Poets Southside

Join highly respected local and visiting poets Panda Wong, Gareth Morgan, Hamish Danks Brown (hosting), and Jessica L. Wilkinson, reading new works, along with local poet and writer Jacinta Le Plastrier, reading from her new poetry collection, ‘these memories require’ (Puncher & Wattmann, 2025). Wilkinson will also be reading from her in-progress manuscript on St Kilda artistic icon Mirka Mora. 

Books by the poets will be available for sale along with journals and magazines, Rabbit Poetry and Sick Leave. The poets will also be available to sign books and to meet the guests afterwards. 

About the poets

Jacinta Le Plastrier is a Boonwurrung/Naarm-based writer, poet, essayist, editor and publisher. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Book Review, ABC’s 24 Hours, Meanjin, Cordite, sick leave journal, and more. She is the former Chief Executive and Publisher of Australian Poetry. Her latest book is these memories require (Puncher & Wattmann, 2025).

Panda Wong is a poet and editor living on unceded Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri land. She is one-half of music/poetry project lotus threads, as well as its expanded project lotus web. She is the author of 'angel wings dumpster fire' and released a collaborative poetry EP, salmon cannon me into the abyss, in 2022. She co-edited Best of Australian Poems 2023. 
 
Gareth Morgan is the author of When A Punk Becomes A Spunk and Dear Eileen, and co-director of Sick Leave. 
 
Hamish Danks Brown (aka Danksta Downunder) is a poet, spoken word artist and storyteller based in El Driftwood near St Kilda. Writing since childhood, he continues to perform in his sixties. His chapbooks include All Other Destinations (2010) and The Broken Candle (2019), with a full-length work in progress titled Vices Wrenches Forges Anvils. He is Vice-President of Melbourne Poets Union and convenes The Last Outpost of Poetry at Claypots St Kilda and Spoken Word @ Bar Oussou in Brunswick. Hamish has performed and published across Australia, Asia, Europe and North America.

Jessica Wilkinson has published three poetic biographies, most recently Music Made Visible: A Biography of George Balanchine (Vagabond, 2019), and is working on a fourth on French-Australian artist Mirka Mora. She is the founding editor of Rabbit: a journal for nonfiction poetry, which has recently entered a new phase of 'Annual' publications.