Catchment – Poetry of Place welcomes submissions from writers resident in Australia. Both longer poems and tanka will show a sense of location.
This opportunity has been set up thanks to the Baw Baw Arts Alliance, a creative collective in the West Gippsland region, named after a key peak in the Victorian span of Australia’s Great Dividing Range.
In clear view of Mount Baw Baw, looking southward, the Strzelecki Ranges run in parallel.
Between the two, the Latrobe River flows, heading toward fossil-fuel coalfields, through grasslands on floodplains, currently feeding sheep and cattle, formerly grazed on by kangaroos, as a food source once vital to Gunaikurnai people, Traditional Owners of country.
Inside those two ridges of higher ground, a catchment collects rainfall into a river system which makes its way toward coastal lakes.
Like a basin gathering run-off, this journal seeks to draw contrasting types of poems into a larger stream: inspired by a river running from west to east, Catchment will give a home to poetry from different cultural origins – European and Japanese – springing from various localities.
This is true to the Baw Baw Arts Alliance’s overall commitment to being culturally inclusive.
Appreciated at Catchment, a piece focussing upon writing about place – by Alexis Wright, from Meanjin, Winter 2019 – can be accessed through this link:
https://meanjin.com.au/essays/a-journey-in-writing-place/
Emails related to Catchment should be sent to this address: editors.catchment@bawbawartsalliance.org.au