The last time Sarah Temporal featured at Poetica was in 2018 at a little bar called The Speakeasy in Bondi. We were in between venues and this tiny space was packed with poets and poetry lovers on a balmy summer’s night. We are thrilled that Sarah who resides in Murwillumbah is joining us again and this time it’s to launch her debut book of poetry Tight Bindings. We are also very excited to have Sydney based multi-instrumentalist and renowned as one of Australia’s most talented handpan players Baran Yildiz join us. See below for more about Sarah and Baran.

And of course there is the grand old open mic plus cheese and wine and kombucha.

Join us at Woollahra Gallery!

Tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/poetica-petit-poetry-night-tickets-938109469677

Sarah Temporal is a prize-winning poet living on Bundjalung lands in the NSW Northern Rivers. Her writing is concerned with revealing our hidden selves, and ranges from personal confessions to reclaimed fairy tales. Her work has been anthologised in Best of Australian Poems, Heroines Anthology, Australian Poetry Anthology and more, and was shortlisted for the Val Vallis Award. With a background in education, she has taught poetry to hundreds of people from ages 8 to 89, and now runs a regional arts initiative (Poets Out Loud) to empower voices of all ages. Arriving after twenty years of performing live, Tight Bindings is her first published collection.

Praise for Tight Bindings:

Sonically brilliant, tender, and gutsy, Sarah’s poems are born of razor-sharp social awareness. – Esther Ottaway, poet

Temporal’s poems rewrite the fairy tales with a deft sleight of hand. Under it all, rocklike, she conjures vibrant journeys, the magic potion of memory, bodies in love and the inexplicable impetus to carry on. – Kerri Shying, poet

Tight Bindings may be the most complete and organic interpretation of femininity I’ve ever encountered, and it will guide me for years to come. It reads like a love letter to all of us who have ever been daughters, and presents a powerful re-integration of those experiences outside the confines of gendered narratives. – Es Foong, poet

Baran Yildiz is a Sydney based multi-instrumentalist and renowned as one of Australia’s most talented handpan players. Baran’s music combines melodies and rhythms of the Anatolia, Middle East and Africa with a modern touch on the hand pan, piano and various percussion instruments. Originally trained in classical piano and jazz drums, Baran has gradually become a contemporary world music composer. Baran has released two albums: ‘Interbeing’ (September 2019) and Bridging Worlds (October 2023), blending various modern world and neo-classical music elements to present enchanting instrumental soundscapes. Baran pushes the boundaries of the handpan instrument through experimenting with different melodic layers and collaborating with other leading instrumentalists. He is regularly invited to perform at the prominent world music venues and festivals across Australia.