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Awake Together: Poems of Life brings six acclaimed performers – five poets and one musician – into one of Castlemaine’s most unexpected settings: Thompson Family Funerals. It’s an intimate evening shaped by candour, tenderness and the belief that poetry lands differently when the room itself carries memory.
Each artist brings a strong connection to the region and to the craft of language. Andy Jackson, born in Bendigo and living in Castlemaine since 2015, reads with the insight that has defined his award-winning work, including Human Looking, winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Poetry. Rachael Wenona Guy, also a local since 2015, brings work shaped by her collaborations Each Map of Scars (CSF 2017) and This House My Body, as well as her collection The Hungry Air. EA Gleeson, poet and funeral director based in Kyneton, offers poems informed by ritual, care and decades of listening to families at pivotal moments. Kevin Brophy OA, author of more than twenty books, brings a generous, steady voice attuned to the subtleties of everyday experience. Izzy Roberts-Orr reads from Raw Salt (Vagabond Books, 2024), a collection of elegies and healing shaped by her work as a poet, broadcaster and facilitator of the Red Room Company’s Dial-a-Poem project. Kavisha Mazzella AM – much-loved singer-songwriter, composer and choir leader – adds a musical presence shaped by decades of performance and community leadership.
Hosting this event at Thompson Family Funerals – a place that has supported remembrance in the Mount Alexander region for more than sixty years – reframes the venue as a site of gathering rather than parting. Through poem and song, the room becomes one of clarity, connection and quietly shared beauty. Awake Together offers an evening of poetry and music that meets audiences where they are: honest, tender and deeply human.
