What a great night at Goodwood Theatre and Studios for the SA Final of the 2025 Australian Poetry Slam! After a tight, high quality contest in front of a full house, we are proud to have winner Arantza Garcia and runner-up Tori Johns (TJ) representing the SA poetry community at the National Final of the Australian Poetry Slam at the Sydney Opera House on 26 October. We wish them the best of luck!
Congratulations to all the other finalists on the night: Stephanie Mylan, Conor Brown, Ben Adams, Jacqueline Collier, Peter Wilkes, Elise Witter and Nigel Ford. Our 10th finalist, Suzie Hall, was unable to make it on the night.
There were so many highlights of this year’s State Final of the Australian Poetry Slam it’s hard to choose a favourite! Not only did we have 9 incredibly talented poets grace us with their words, but a fantastic sacrificial poem by Nadia Patterson, a ripper feature set from JACK VAUL, and a healthy dose of insanity with the annual “voting of the hat”! Will drawing the names of the poets from the head of a beast become the next poetry slam tradition? Only time will tell!
Thank you to everyone involved in this year’s competition: from the volunteers, poets and venues to the judges and audiences that have supported us with clicks and cheers.
And a special thanks to the local poetry community, without whom this competition wouldn’t exist. SA has a thriving scene of spoken word open mics and readings, full of talent and warmth, run by passionate people who do it for the love of words.
Photos by the talented Jazz Fechner-Lante, kindly sponsored by Matilda Bookshop
Videos from the night will be available soon.
