Poets-in-Residence

Poet-in-Residence

Changes in 2013

The Poet-in-Residence program has now ended but it is not completely dead. In continuing the aim to make poetry more accessible, a new direction has been taken.

Via the Students Take Over Tumblr initiative, students will be able to share poetry with a wider student community, rather than to a specific audience. Without restrictions on form or length, you will simply be given free reigns over a week to post on behalf of RMIT through RMIT’s official Tumblr account.

For more details about the initiative visit Students Take Over.

If you would like to get involved, register here.

What was Poet-in-Residence?

It started with Poetry 4 U, an anthology of ‘twitter’ poetry published in print by the School of Media and Communication. All the poetry in the collection came from an exhibition of poetry of no more than 140 characters long shown at the Melbourne Writers Festival in 2009 and 2010.

From this, the Poet-in-Residence program came about.

The aim of the program was to broaden the access and participation of poetry. Each month students used Twitter as a way to not only showcase their work but to also encourage the writing of poetry in the broader community.

Previous poets-in-residence

October/November – Aiman S. Ahmad

Aiman’s profile:

Peace, I am Aiman S. Ahmad, a Master of Social Work student. A forever traveller schooled in the lower Himalayas, I took up the pen at fifteen to search for meaning in harsh conditions, and ever since have found myself on a journey to new frontiers.

My favourite authors are R. L. Stevenson, Lao Tse, Shakespeare and Homer. Love for life, fellow man, and the world peps up the Romance of words and deeds. Presently I am working on a young adult fantasy with a January 2013 deadline.


October/November – Elsie Mellor

Elsie’s profile:

My name is Elsie Mellor and I am currently studying a Bachelor of Creative Writing at RMIT. I began writing poetry Splike Milligan style when I was quite young, and although my writing style has changed drastically since then, my love of writing has remained the same.

I now write short stories and poetry, usually in the style of magic realism where the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred. I am currently working on my first novel about obsession and creativity in the 1800s, and keep hoping for the invention of the time machine so I can fulfil my own obsessions with the 19th Century.


October/November – Jem

Jem’s profile:

Hello, I’m Jem and I’m interested primarily in the music of words.

I love reading too, but it’s the writing that makes me fly. You should see me dancing on a notepad at uni, where I’m about to graduate my BA in Creative Writing.

I’m also a 2nd Dan black belt. I’ve trained in Shukokai Karate for fourteen years, and taught it for four.

I was recently shortlisted for the Katharine Sussanah Prichard Award and published by Monash University’s Verge.

My work can be found at: www.excalamus.com


June/July – Nimai Hawkins

A sample of Nimai’s poems:

  • Your eyes went through my heart, all the way to my soul. I crumbled, for this disease my knowledge has no keys
  • 13. and thus, upon #devotion's tainted blade you lay your fallacy, lie still. The night quickens. A mourner's salt dried cheeks ashen. Life.
  • 6. "ARRGH" in your ecclesiastical attire addorned with blue sapphire you scorn my people in slums, your pillion disease but appease my#
  • 7. and you shriek in hill-billyan polyphonic prose from the middle rows, your #city's socks have holes where its feet have toes, so i love u

April/May – Cory Zanoni

RMIT homepage

A sample of Cory’s poems:

  • "medicated 2am violence" - banned from bars / howling, gutter moon / all glass sheep and cotton wolves.
  • 4. i became 90% happier when i stopped worrying and embraced my inner wombat. (#lifehack) (#16tips)
  • 16. Don't trust poets. (#lifehack) (#16tips)
  • (#poem) 'i found the world in a tea cup. the pacific spilt into the saucer, an ocean reduced to ringlets in a piece of second hand china. '

March – Rafael S.W

RMIT homepage

A sample of Rafael’s poems:

  • Freedom's Frontier (#Korea)–The weapons seemed small on the screen. She wore his pyjamas. His teeth felt soft. Come April they could be dead
  • (A sky like empty hotel rooms). My coffee is pulp. Letterwaiting. I think of all the places I've never been. My teeth are stained newsprint.
  • 'postcard' -This wasn't such a good idea. I'll spare you regrets. Throw what you don't keep. It looks like snow. My love to the boys.
  • 'Fingers are fragile.' Seeing you is like sitting on a chair. Collapsing. You walk naked near windows. We're both waiting for the fall.