The 2026 Nature Festival Be Natural Poetry Slam at Arthur Art Bar was an all-round Big Buzz affair! Fabulous poets, a great audience, and new standards in staging and drawing-names-out-the-hat-etiquette! As always, the scoring was tight, but in the end, congratulations to winner Jas and close runner-up Brendan Kilpatrick.
Special thanks to our guest poet Mike Ladd for a superb set of poems addressing contemporary issues affecting our local environment. Thank you to everyone who came along and competed, cheered, volunteered in support of poetry.
Stage flowers were created by sacrificial poet and timekeeper, Tracy McNally; the Blue Banded Bee with The Hat was created by MC Matthew Pankhurst; Daniel Watson looked after the door and ticketing; and Ian Gibbins took the pictures.
We also gratefully acknowledge the fantastic help from our junior volunteers on the day!
