Rebecca Jessen's Blog

I’m thrilled to have a new poem in the TRANSQUEER issue of Cordite, my thanks to the editors (and two of my favourite people/poets) Stuart Barnes and Quinn Eades. The lineup for this issue is incredible, I encourage reading front to back, and then back again!

You can read my poem ‘sillage’ here. This is the first time I’ve (successfully) written a love poem, and I’m pretty stoked to see it sharing digital space with some of my other favourite poets, including Eileen Myles (!), Rae White, Alis...

It’s been a good year for poetry publishing! I have two new poems out this month. My cento ‘after-images’ after Dorothy Porter was recently published in the 2018 Australian Poetry Anthology, with thanks to the editors Jill Jones and Bella Li for picking it up. The anthology is a comprehensive survey of what has been published in Australian poetry this year. You can grab your copy here.

I also made my international debut recently, with my poem ‘The Weekly’ getting published in queer poetry jou...

Let me tell you about some of the exciting events I have coming up in the next 6 weeks. Firstly, I will be appearing at two events at the Queensland Poetry Festival and I’m so thrilled to not only be a part of the festival again, but to be sharing the stage with so many brilliant poets whom I admire and respect. The event details are below, stay tuned next week for a more detailed post on some of the (many) other QPF events I’m super excited for!

Queensland Poetry Festival: Saturday August 25...

I’m happy to report that I’ll be reading some poems at the final ‘Saturdays‘ of the year, this coming Saturday 21st July. It’s always great to see new poetry events popping up in Brisbane (we haven’t yet reached peak poetry). I will be reading alongside the fabulous Raelee Lancaster, Bonny Cassidy, and Anthony Lawrence. The event starts at 2.30pm at the fabulous Can You Keep A Secret? bar in Woolloongabba.  Hope to see you there!

I’m thrilled to have a poem in the LGBTQIA+ issue of Rabbit Poetry Journal, guest-edited by Michael Farrell. My poem ‘Vote Yes to Pineapple on Pizza’ is a found poem, compiled using media clippings from last year’s horrific postal-survey black hole. Writing this poem allowed me a small but necessary opportunity to take back control over some of the destructive narrative being spun about queer lives, and I’m particularly grateful that it found a home amongst the work of some of my favourite pe...

It has been a productive start to the publishing year with two poems published in the past weeks, and two poems forthcoming in Woolf Pack #10 and Rabbit Poetry Journal LGBTQ+ issue.

The wonderful people at Verity La published my poem ‘Triage’ as part of their incredible Clozapine Clinic, and I got my first publication in Stylus Lit with my poem ‘time-lapse’. I’m thrilled to be sharing pages in these wonderful journals with some of my favourite people and poets, including Shastra Deo, and Stua...

2017 was my most productive writing year to date, and thanks to some intensely focused study I now have more than half of my next poetry collection written, here’s hoping 2018 proves just as prolific! Below is a list of my publications in 2017:

Cordite Poetry Review: ‘(after)HER: dating app adventures’
Pressure Gauge Press: ‘when I am first social without you’
The Lifted Brow: ‘We’re All Going on a Summer Holiday’ + ‘Summer Holiday Mixtape’ The Suburban Review: ‘This Is What Makes Us’
Tinctur...

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The Digital Writers Festival is a fine example of the Internet using its powers for good and not evil. The festival wrapped up last Friday night, and I had the pleasure of reading some poems in the closing night event: Manifest. The session was a fitting end to the festival, laced with equal amounts of hope–and, I think–despair at our current situation. As Izzy Roberts-Orr (Artistic Director) pointed out, it takes a balance of these two states of consciousness to be able to envision a future...

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Look Mum, I’m going live on the Internet! I’m so excited to announce that I’ll be participating in this year’s Digital Writers Festival which will run from October 24-November 3.  You can check out the full program here I can tell you now, it is stellar.

The Digital Writers Festival is a product of the Emerging Writers Festival (also stellar) and it brings together writers from all over Australia and the world to beam brilliant content straight to your screens.

I will be performing at the cl...

I’m really pleased to have my Val Vallis shortlisted poem ‘(after)HER: dating app adventures’ published online at Cordite Poetry Review. Read it now and share it with all your friends! And make sure you read the other winning and shortlisted poems, because they are all brilliant. Thanks again to the judges Stuart Barnes and Michelle Cahill, Cordite, QPF and Arts QLD ❤