NO open mic.

In July, Geoff Page’s monthly reading series will feature Jennifer Compton from Melbourne and S. K. Kelen from Canberra.

Jennifer Compton lives in Melbourne which she likes just fine, but she does also very much like jaunting about all over to attend poetry events and meet with the local poets and find out what they are up to. Her curiosity is also assuaged by judging competitions. Most recently she co-judged the Newcastle Poetry Prize with Eunice Andrada, and she was afforded a glimpse into what roughly 900 Australian poets think is worth going on about. And she has taken up reviewing, for The Saturday Paper, Cordite Poetry Review etc, because she is energised by entering into a deep conversation with one particular book, and then crystallising her opinions into more or less well-chosen words.

S. K. Kelen is an Australian poet who has been writing poetry for longer than he cares to remember. He enjoys travel, sports, gardening on cool sunny days, reading, writing, and philosophically hanging around the house. His most recent collections are A Happening in Hades (Puncher & Wattmann, 2020), Love’s Philosophy (Gazebo Books, 2020) and The Cult of What Comes Next (Puncher & Wattmann, 2025), which was awarded the 2025 Canberra Critics’ Circle Award for Poetry.