Flying Islands Newsletter - Flying Islands Pocket Poets

Welcome to the NEW edition!

Join us for the Sydney launch of the new Flying Islands books at the Addi Rd Writers’ Festival!

On this coming Saturday, 16^th May — at the Addi Rd Writers’ Festival, in Marrickville at 12 noon on the dot!

If you are just coming to the opening of the FLYING ISLANDS book launches and/or MY FIRST FOREST OF WORDS, there is no need to pay anything.

These events are all at the Stirrup Gallery, which is just inside the gate at Addi Rd. If you are going to the rest of the festival you should get tickets at

https://events.humanitix.com/addi-road-writers-festival-2026

We thoroughly recommend you get tickets to the main festival too – a great cause and community event!

Kit Kelen’s exhibition MY FIRST FOREST OF WORDS, also opens this Saturday (16th May), at noon, in the Stirrup Gallery, at the Addi Rd Writers’ Festival, in Marrickville. Please see more information on the flyers! The exhibition will be open from Monday afternoon (11^th)

You can see some of the details from the works on paper in the exhibition below —

https://thedailykitkelen.blogspot.com/2026/05/sample-of-details-from-my-first-forest.html

Do remember that these beautiful new books are available on our website! You can order them at: 2026 – Flying Islands Pocket Poets

Another and even better way to receive all these books: poetry subscriptions are available – support us by becoming a Friend of Flying Islands Poetry Community! It’s a great way to keep up to date with all the current Flying Island Poetry publications!

For an annual recurring payment of $100 (AUD) plus postage and handling you receive, each year, hard copies of each of our current publications, usually, eight (8), and two (2) randomly selected publications from previous years. You will receive a total of ten (10) books. This package also includes e-book versions of the publications where e-book versions are available. For further information, go to Friends of Flying Islands Poetry Community – Flying Islands Pocket Poets

Some of Flying Islands’ Other Activities this year

A YEAR OF NON-STOP POETRY MAKING (2026 is now full – but think of it for 2027!)

The Flying Islands Yearlong Poetry Manuscript Workshop (led by Kit Kelen)

For more information see – A YEAR OF NON-STOP POETRY MAKING – Flying Islands Pocket Poets

The Flying Islands 2026 Manuscript Poetry Competition

The third biannual competition has broken a submission record with nearly sixty submissions! The first two comps successfully unearthed great new books in 2022 and 2024. Watch this space and social media for more details as they come to hand. And to review the earlier competition, see below:

2024 Poetry Manuscript Competition – Flying Islands Pocket Poets

Thank you for reading the second edition of the Flying Islands’ newsletter!

Please let us know your news too – competition success, books published, readings, launches and other news.

Send to: admin@flyingislandspocketpoets.com.au

View previous newsletters

Filthy because first, I fell from a family
of fifty. No explanation save Fusion, that it fed
the lilies with death until time
became thin, brittle, expired in a long, pathetic
stouche. Stouche: run aground — blue canoes (why
blue? — as an antidote to the narrator’s filth) are picked up
by painted warriors & carried into a dense forest, never
to be seen again, a gratuitous image whose only purpose
apparently is to disrupt the flow
of the narrative. Stouche: how long
can a breath last? Eighty seconds? Ample time
to let them pass. How many were there? Too many
to count. Mares or stallions? Couldn’t tell
with all the dust. Should I make them blind, add
an unnecessary complication to a narrative
already burdened with one superfluous image (blue
canoes)? Stouche: a stampede
into a feast where the rationing is exceptionally
strict that sends them flying as befits a narrative
that extols the pieta-like austerity of a mother & son
huddled together on a drifting raft (Niagara thundering
in the distance) who can’t get over the fact that the tombs
(with which both shores are lined) are so ... prophetic, so
stouche as prayers for salvation are answered only
to run afoul of the Law. Too supernatural, this
phenomenon, there could be a panic. Clear the court
of spectators! (&, by extension, the streets of filth
with a water cannon). Stouche: clean
because last, the narrative reduced (by a neat
solipsism) to the narrator, that family of fifty
of no further use.

Welcome to the NEW edition!

Join us for the Sydney launch of the new Flying Islands books at the Addi Rd Writers’ Festival!

On this coming Saturday, 16th May — at the Addi Rd Writers’ Festival, in Marrickville at 12 noon on the dot!

Do remember that these beautiful new books are available on our website! You can order them at: 2026 – Flying Islands Pocket Poets

Some of Flying Islands’ Other Activities this year

On this coming Saturday, 16^th May — at the Addi Rd Writers’ Festival, in Marrickville at 12 noon on the dot!