Writing to Understand the World

Participants in this workshop will partake in activities that ask them to interrogate their story as a way of understanding themselves and the world happening around them.

Poetic Meditation Workshop – Movement BE

Developed by Movement BE founder Nate Howard, The Poetic Meditation Workshop is a qualitatively unique experience where the art of poetry and meditation come together to an uplifting experience.

Poetry Chatroom

Virtual Event NT, Australia

8 guest poets are invited to an interactive live performance opportunity where the audience enters a poets chatroom.

Consciousness for the Subconscious: A Mindful Poetry Podcast

Virtual Event NT, Australia

Red Dirt Poetry Festival invites you to relax with us, meditate or even fall asleep. We all need and deserve some time out to rest, every night of the festival we will release a new episode on 8CCC and online. In this short podcast our poets will speak to your subconscious and help guide you to creatively relax and support your mind to process the world around us and the spaces we occupy.

Opening Ceremony

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Smoking Ceremony and Acknowledgement of Country from Akeyulerre Healing Centre.

NT Poetry Month Showcase

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Co-presented by Red Room Poetry and Red Dirt Poetry Festival as part of Poetry Month 2022

Gravidity, Parity, Poetry

Birth & Beyond 10/89 Todd St, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

An event for people with babies

Free

Imagining Resilience

Alice Springs Public Libary Cnr Leichhardt & Gregory Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

If you were free to be you, and your loved ones were free to be themselves, how would that look and feel? Join poets Alexandra C. Steffan and Rowan Rose in a playful and joyful exploration of the ways we might connect in possible futures, in our communities and in the world around us. Bring […]

$10

Power Discourse within Poetry

Alice Springs Public Libary Cnr Leichhardt & Gregory Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Join Victoria Alondra and Huda the Goddess to examine how the language we use affects others and ourselves, context, shoehorn, clout chasing and point scoring - why we do it, how to detect it and how to not do it. Book Now

$10

Connective Tissue

Adelaide House 50 Todd Street Mall, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

A collaborative installation of images and words

Free

Mixtape Memoirs

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

MixTape Memoirs is the convergence of music and poetry. We’ve asked 10 poets to write with a song in mind relating to this year’s festival theme longing and re/connection. It’s not the mixtape you’ve asked for but it’s the mixtape you need. A love letter from us to you…

$5

Agapi & Other Kinds of Love

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Based on Plato’s The Symposium, Agapi & Other Kinds of Love is a Modern Hip-hop Opera embedded in the Ancient Greek storytelling tradition. Greek-Australian poet and rap artist Luka Lesson’s reputation as one of Australia’s best storytellers shines as he takes us on a journey through the Ancient Greek kinds of love. SOLD OUT!

$25

Oscillations

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Synth meets poetry

$5

FIRE VR

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

FIRE is a Virtual Reality project filmed in the burnt forests of South Coast NSW in early 2021 following the devastating 2020-2021 fires. In partnership with Outlandish Arts, disabled artists working across multi-art forms to express their thoughts on climate justice.

Free

Connective Tissue

Adelaide House 50 Todd Street Mall, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

A collaborative installation of images and words

Free

International Haiku Death Match Championship

8CCC 14 Lindsay Ave, East Side, NT, Australia

You me? Saturday morning in the 8CCC Carpark to battle it out for the title of International Haiku Death Match Champion. All haiku to stick to the 17 syllable (5-7-5) format, this death match will be broadcast live on 8CCC. Open to everyone so get writing those haiku and meet you in the carpark for […]

Free

Exploring the Self Through Tangential Metaphor

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Are you a star? Or a satellite? Leave identity politics and proper nouns at the door to follow your pen through the nit-picky, unnameable facets of self in this step-by-step workshop by four-time Australian poetry slam finalist Andi Stewart. Armed with a mountain of metaphors and a tangential mind-map, learn how to write an explorative […]

$10

Woman at the Wheel

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

In 1907, Henry Lawson felt the motor car was “sullen, like a thing that should not be”. Indeed, in the early 1900s cars were, for many, a symbol of power and wealth: noisy, dangerous, destructive and unfamiliar. Part love letter to the freedom of the ride, part eulogy to the single-driver gas guzzler, Eleanor Jackson […]

Free

Everything’s F*cked: It’s the End of the World

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Four poets look at the apocalypse through a poetic lens, what is the end of world? We all have events, moments in time that signify the end of the world as we know it. The apocalypse may not be Mad Max style escapades, the end of the world might just be a whimper, a change, […]

Free

The Somatics of Existence in “The New Reality”

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Four poets share their somatic inspired works and explore the connectedness of all things body, spirit, mind and language. The space between our physical beings and the language we use to express ourselves in society in this time and space in our “new reality” may seem like a straightforward concept or is it?

Free

Beatbox Meets Poetry

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Come and join world-renowned beatboxer, theatre performer and poet Hope One and learn from one of the best, in this workshop Hope helps you develop tools to create rythym techniques and explores the connection between poetic performance and beatbox. Book Now

$10

SIARAD

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

It’s 2020. A poet arrives in Western Australia to visit her Welsh mother who has dementia. But border controls mean she must remain in isolation for two weeks. Shifting between the worlds of the writing room, the Slam stage and the wounds of family history, the poet examines what it means to be a poet, […]

$10

Poetry in Motion 2022

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Guts Dance x Red Dirt Poets team up in this amazing showcase, seven poets and seven dancers have collaborated to create a moving piece of poetic expressions. Poetry in Motion will take you on a moving journey featuring an opening number from Fan Fatale. SOLD OUT!

$10

Declarations in the Dark

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Let’s take a walk over to the Blue Moon for a showcase of spoken word poets from around the country, these seasoned artists will share their stories with you under the stars. The event is BYO and food will be available.

$10

Not the AfterParty

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Not your nanna’s afterparty - kicking off the gig is a feature performance from Harrison & Black Jesus in Do You Thrust Me. Followed by the eco-punk warrior stylings of Stellar Sea and smashing their way onto stage in true Alice Springs fashion is the Holy Dimes. Come party with us! BYO Event.

$10

Connective Tissue

Adelaide House 50 Todd Street Mall, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

A collaborative installation of images and words

Free

Arrernte Womens Poetry Group & Marketplace

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Come and join us for morning tea with readings from the Arrernte Women’s Poetry Group’s first book, Arelhekenhe Angkentye Women’s Talk and recent works.

Woman at the Wheel

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

In 1907, Henry Lawson felt the motor car was “sullen, like a thing that should not be”. Indeed, in the early 1900s cars were, for many, a symbol of power and wealth: noisy, dangerous, destructive and unfamiliar. Part love letter to the freedom of the ride, part eulogy to the single-driver gas guzzler, Eleanor Jackson […]

Free

Red Dirt Scrawl

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Red Dirt Scrawl is a collection of poems written for, inspired by, and read during the successive 2018 and 2020 Red Dirt Poetry Festivals by Jeremy Garnett. It provides a glimpse into the emotional and literary experience of the festival, which is organised by poets, with poets, for poets. This book is thus a reflection […]

Free

To quote Slim Dusty, Looking Forward, Looking Back

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Retrospective - the importance of looking back in order to move forward. Politically, locally or globally, these poets share their work and discuss how it is everything that happens to us and everyone ever that creates the existence of our reality.

Free

What Does ‘Nice’ Mean Anyway?

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Niceness. It’s a nice word, in an ideal world everyone would be nice. But what does that even mean? These poets explore the concept of niceness from a poetic viewpoint as we delve deep into the idea... you may leave feeling pretty nice or you may leave questioning the existence of everything.

Free

Power Discourse within Poetry SECOND SESSION

Blue Moon 17 Undoolya Rd, East Side, NT, Australia

Join Victoria Alondra and Huda the Goddess for a second session, examining how the language we use affects others and ourselves, context, shoehorn, clout chasing and point scoring - why we do it, how to detect it and how to not do it.

$10

Love & Belonging

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Love and belonging is a collection of songs by Bambadino illustrated by Frankie Garnett that explore how we come to love and find our place in the world. Join us for this collaborative between two artists for a presentation of projection artworks and music.

Prickly Pear

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Prickly Pear is a multidisciplinary live arts performance prioritising the creative practice of women and gender diverse people. Unraveling the tensions found at the intersections. Prickly Pear cross-pollinates performers and audience alike, building relationships between artists that might not usually share a line-up. It's a space held by everybody to witness and be witnessed; for […]

So Long & Thanks for All the Poetry

Totem Theatre & Courtyard 8 Wills Tce, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

It’s time to say goodbye - let’s go out with a bang! Join us for the final hurrah as these spoken word masters take to the stage to say goodbye the only way they know how.

$10