New day, new poem.
Start the day with a poem as 30in30 delivers new original poetry, reflections and writing prompts from some of the country’s leading poets, authors, and spoken word artists every day across Poetry Month in August.
Delight in original commissions by our 2026 Poetry Ambassadors and Youth Ambassadors, The Poetry Company Fellows, contemporary poets and cultural icons working at their finest. Stay tuned for new work from poets Evelyn Araluen, Ellen van Neerven, Alan Fyfe, Tusiata Avia (NZ), Kristen Lang, Troy Wong, Judith Beveridge, Keri Glastonbury, Jacqui Malins, and Liam Ferney, alongside award-winning Gudanji/Wakaja and Kalkadoon writer and academic Debra Dank and Wodi Wodi/Dharawal/Wandiwondian and Walbunja teacher, dancer and choreographer Elizabeth Luland.
In 2026, enjoy multi-disciplinary co-commissioned works from critical art collective Snack Syndicate (Astrid Lorange and Andrew Brooks), poetry and music project Lotus Threads (poet Panda Wong and musician Hannah Wu), and co-editors of journal for artistic and poetic applications of technology Crawlspace (Hannah Jenkins and Rory Green).
Subscribe to our newsletters and YouTube channel, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook to catch the 30in30 commissions daily across August.
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the courtyard
By Missy Higginsit’s in the body
a deep history remembering itself
starting out small
a tiny ball of rolling planets under my ribs -
they heard how we are cedar
By Jihad Yassinethey used our children
for their walls
and took it literally because they do not know the beauty of our poetry
they call themselves ‘peace makers’ -
Infinite Ibis
By Keri Glastonburyobviously aging (headshot short ashy hair
resting poet face, hook nose) but never
old enough for Winnie Blue in a silver
drawstring handbag after hockey: the slacker -
No Gentle Good Night
By Debra DankSeeming anodyne and inert, coal and gas burn beds fouled rivers cannot extinguish
as if paper and pencil jottings, as if a careless mistake
taken care of with a precise slash to mark
as worthless dust like Them. -
Warm Enough
By Jan FranThe question I ask myself the most is what temperature is my son
On the days we bake along the coast
I stare up at the sun
As it bears down on us -
from Omnia Sunt Communia
By Snack Syndicate, Astrid Lorange, Andrew BrooksTo push onto and into, as a screw bears down on its thread.
Marcus sings, in the morning I surround you.
-
I wish I was chill
By SezI wish I was chill
sometimes my thoughts are landfill
childhood was netball and divorce
watched Saddle Club but never rode a horse -
Self portrait of the poet as his djungelskog
By Troy WongNo formal diagnosis though we’re pretty sure.
Evident from age 18 months. Machine wash
40°C max, high function. Wash-tested but sensitive. -
Heat Sink
By Evelyn AraluenWhat was it you said on the phone that time
the line hissed from the missile’s radiation
I could hardly hear from the code spluttering
binaries of last night’s undeliverable lullaby -
ganma-li
By Rudi BremerYour memory of my love is longer than mine
It reaches back to days when I could lose you
Simply by closing my eyes
Or letting go of your hand in a crowd -
Welcome
By Ziggy RamoI’d like to acknowledge
the lack of knowledge.
We renamed the Frontier Wars -
home reimagined
By Isabella Eichler-OnusWhen did we become so unfamiliar? Were we collectively wronged, or did I just let go? Like my gut with the dip in the road. Thread pulling organs down, before the body has a chance to react. // Whiplash from this new new music in an old place. 70,000 years old. Sing us a song! No more than a mumble in the passenger seat. Sun’s heat magnified by th… -
Second Innings
By Bharat SundaresanThey huddled around me, like close-in fielders on a Mumbai dustbowl
A couple stood a few feet away, hands clasping their knees
The other two much closer, crouched low right under my nose
To catch anything that came their way -
Temple
By Liam FerneyYour God, why is he of war?
Memed blessed bombs bloom.
Where is mercy in this?
Button warriors dependant on a silent -
Muriyira Dreaming
By Elizabeth Luland'Muriyira Dreaming' written and performed by Elizabeth Luland. Videography by Tad Souden and sound by Syd Green.
garuga-ngayawanj muriyira lore
mudjingaal ceremony has begun
ngarawan barra barra warmth -
Watermark
By Kristen Langfor David B
4am, he wakes, reaching out –
mountains, chiselled valleys, a small
sea between us – to say he is thinking -
The Job
By Janiru LiyanageYou go your whole life believing
dying is the easy part, then one day
your great aunt gets a brain tumour the size of a
kumquat burrowing inside her hippocampus, and -
A HAUNTOLOGY OF TRACES
By Ellen van NeervenSit but don’t
sit. Live but don’t
live. This is beyond discomfort
-
Discretion and ambiguity
By Jacqui MalinsIt doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Not representation nor avatar. No hint of face or figure. No vase of flowers. Shapes and lines arranged in space, proximate or distant. Dynamic symmetry. A straw-yellow rectangle floats low on a field of Barraba blue. Shapes and lines. A painting replicated on screen, a beguiling simplicity. Shapes and lines… -
rat patootie
By lotus threads, Panda Wong, Hannah WuO symphony of crackle
lil rat dominatrix tell me
what to do pull my hair
with yr tender paw mincemeat -
For the Machines
By Alan FyfeDoors closing. Going up. First floor, residential and quietly religious. Second floor, haberdashery and implication. Sorry, we don’t know each other – my name is Sylvia. Third floor, gardening supplies and six million empty coats. It was my fourth acting gig in thirty-seven months. Greasy little studio with the walls sweating grief. Outstanding pl… -
Learning Arabic
By Misbah WolfThe djinn lived in an onyx ring.
At the mosque
a man stood
with a whiteboard and a pen -
Breadfruit
By Sela Ahosivi-AtiolaThe sun welds itself to Sunnyholt Road,
lights blur into liquid over the asphalt car park of Parklea Market.
Cars idle, engines hum with their mouths half open,
traffic horns bleed into the thick murmur of chatter. -
The Water Talks
By Rob WatersLet me start by saying that I do not claim to be an academic.
But I know what it’s like to sit by a river.
What it feels like to watch water pass by, maybe never to be seen again.
Water lost around the bend -
An Old Farmer Remembers His Dog
By Judith BeveridgeThe ewes are rattled; they bleat as if the wind gusting around their ears
were the hard panted breath of mustering kelpies. Last summer,
Cheroot, my best dog was struck by a king brown on Wydah Hill.
I thought he must have lapped from a fetid ditch, for a while -
the bleed
By Dakota Feirernested in the hollows of a long silence
birdsong lament the felled
singing new growth
-
The last bird poem
By Tusiata AviaEver since I wrote the first bird poem
I have been swearing to the gods of colonisation
I will not write another one.
Sparrows, starlings, pigeons, geese -
Dentist Appointment
By Arantza Garcia Ferrandyou lay back / uncomfortable / in a sterile chair. counting
clock beats / heart beats / till / end / of / session. he hovers
above like / falcon / or maybe vulture / picking / at the dead
animal / in your mouth. carrion eating decay / he fills his plate. -
Incant
By Kerry GreerCan’t use the fire emoji, or the heart in flames.
Can’t tell you what it means if an ambulance arrives
and doesn’t leave. Can’t unsee
the things I dream, the mundane scenes of life -
Alight
By Jennifer Kemarre Martiniellowhat lies behind
my forehead
is my Grandmothers’ Law
her women’s wisdom
Featured Poets
#30in30 Writing Competition
30 chances to win a daily book prize with 3 lines!
Running 1-31 August, we'll be releasing a new daily writing prompt created by one of our 30in30 commissioned artists. To view the daily prompt, follow us on Instagram or Facebook.
Winners will be announced daily and each will receive a poetry collection from this year's #30in30 project partner, Dymocks, plus three lucky poets from across the month will be selected for paid publication.
