AVANT GAGA #78: The (Last) Poetry Night at Sappho: Araluen, Elvey, Patterson, Sandev, Fitch

On the second Tuesday of December, the final Poetry Night at Sappho of 2025 will be the final AVANT GAGA at the venue, featuring guest poets Evelyn Araluen, Anne Elvey, Luke Patterson, Miroslav Sandev, and Toby Fitch, plus the usual open mic section. Entry is FREE, but due to its popularity, The Poetry Night at Sappho Books has to implement a ticketing system, with doors opening between 6-6:30pm. Please register to secure your attendance. For those without tickets, there will likely be places from 7:30pm. Please don’t book tickets for anyone not planning to come, as seats are limited.

Sign up for the open mic is also at the door, starting between 6-6:30pm—up to 10 readers can perform for up to 2 minutes each (1 not very long poem is the recommendation). Drinks and tapas can be purchased at the bar.

——-

EVELYN ARALUEN is a Goorie and Koori poet, editor and researcher. Born and raised on Dharug Country and in the broader Western Sydney Black community, she now lives on Wurundjeri Country where she works as a lecturer at the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, as a co-editor of Overland Literary Journal and Chairperson for the Board of the Institute of Postcolonial Studies. Her debut poetry collection, Dropbear, won the 2022 Stella Prize and the Australian Book Industry Award’s 2022 Small Publisher’s Adult Book of the Year. Her work has also received the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize and a Melbourne Prize Career Development Award.

——-

ANNE ELVEY lives on unceded Bunurong Country, as a settler descendent of Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. Her most recent poetry collections are (C)loud: A poetic response to child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church (Palaver, 2025), Intents (Liquid Amber Press, 2025), Leaf (Liquid Amber Press, 2022) and Obligations of voice (Recent Work Press, 2021). Her work spans ecological poetry and poetics, ecological feminist hermeneutics, environmental and social justice, critical biblical interpretation, and unsettling settlerdom. Anne was inaugural managing editor of Plumwood Mountain journal until 2020. https://sunglintdrift.com

——-

LUKE PATTERSON is a Gamilaroi poet, musician and educator living on Gadigal lands. His debut poetry collection A Savage Turn is out now with Magabala Books. Luke’s research and creative pursuits are grounded in extensive work with First Nations and other community-based organisations across Australia.

——-

MIROSLAV SANDEV is a poet, teacher and organiser working on unceded Wangal land. He migrated from Bulgaria to Australia in 1992. His poems have been published in a range of literary journals and anthologies including: Meanjin, Overland, Cordite Poetry Review, Westerly, Rabbit, Snorkel, Otoliths, Australian Poetry Anthology, Australian Speculative Poetry Anthology and The Red Room. His debut full-length collection won the Noel Rowe Poetry Award and will be published by Vagabond Press in 2026. As well as poetry, he has also published short fiction, non-fiction, features and analysis articles. He is a member of the revolutionary socialist group Solidarity.

——-

TOBY FITCH (he/they) is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Sydney, former poetry editor of Overland, and the author of nine books of poetry, including Sydney Spleen (2021) and the forthcoming Or: An Autobiography (Upswell Publishing 2026), plus a very niche scholarly book on Australian poetics, Aussi/Or: Un Coup de dés Down Under. His poetry has won the Grace Leven Prize, the Charles Rischbieth Jury Prize and the Dame Leonie Kramer Prize, and he is currently writing a collection of poetry and prose called Endlings. He lives on unceded Gadigal land with his partner, their three children and a staffy.

——-

AVANT GAGA is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.

IMAGE: Dale Frank, [detail] ‘There was a clearly noticeable problem after Ryan’s third significant Penis Enlargement operation as each of the three Medical Centres had all unknowingly taken fat tissue from the same butt cheek leaving him massively bulbous from the front and lopsided from behind forcing him to end his dreams of becoming an exotic dancer on tik tok’, 2023, colour pigments in epoxyglass, epoxyglass, on Perspex, 200 x 200 cm.