Poet and Writer
AMANDA ANASTASI
About
Amanda Anastasi is a Melbourne poet whose work has been published as locally as the Artist's Lane walls in Windsor to The Massachusetts Review in the US. Her poetry collections are 'Taking Apart the Bird Trap' Recent Work Press, 2024 and 'The Inheritors' (Black Pepper, 2021). Amanda's work has been published in Best Australian Science Writing 2021 and 2022, Australian Poetry Journal, Griffith Review, Cordite Poetry Review, The Massachsetts Review, FourW, Short and Twisted and Right Now. She was recently Poet in Residence at the Monash Climate Change Communications Research Hub, where wrote poetry for three years to raise awareness about ecological issues and the climate crisis.
Awards
Winner, Words In Winter Trentham Poetry Prize, 2017
Winner, Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize (formerly Seagull PoetryPrize) 2011, 2010
Winner, C.J. Dennis Poetry Award, Laura Literary Awards, 2011
Australian Poetry's 'Poem of the Week', 2012
Second Prize, Brimbank Writer's Festival Award, 2013, 2012
Third Prize, W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize in Australia, 2016
Highly Commended, Peter Cowan Writer's Centre Julie Lewis Biennial Awards, 2011
Commended, Melbourne Poets Union International Poetry Prize, 2017
Shortlisted, Woolhara Digital Literary Award for digital innovation in Australian literature: Poetry Category, 2021
Shortlisted, Hammond House Publishing International Poetry Prize, 2021
Shortlisted, Nillumbik Ekphrasis Poetry Award, 2016
Shortlisted, Page Seventeen Poetry Competition, 2009
Writing Residencies
Resident Poet/Research Associate, Monash Climate Change Communications Research Hub, 2019-2022
Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund Recipient, Writers Victoria, 2021
Artist in Residence, Assembly for the Future, The Things We Did Next, 2020
Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship, 2018
Media
Articles I Reviews I Interviews
'7 Purposeful Poets in APAC to Watch' by Sukhveer Kaur, Hive Life
"A climate change advocate and poet, Amanda Anastasi is based in Melbourne. Amanda is the Poet in Residence at the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, where she currently assists with research, education, and awareness on the global environmental crisis." - Sukhveer Kaur
'How the Poet Confronts Climate Change' by Amanda Anastasi, The Gemma White Review
"Write the poem that it scares you to write." - Amanda Anastasi
'Questions for Amanda Anastasi' with a poetry reading of Loggers Post Fire, AOK Magazine
"Don't underestimate your reader and their ability to be challenged and confronted." - Amanda Anastasi
'Compelling Visions of the Future' by Geoff Page, The Weekend Australian
"The Inheritors is a book in which Anastasi's political and aesthetic impulses work powerfully together to create mandatory reading whatever your preferred literary genre may happen to be" - Geoff Page
'Review of The Inheritors by Amanda Anastasi' by Gemma White, Westerly Magazine
"Anastasi offers a deep understanding of what societal change requires on an individual level. That is what makes this collection so compelling." - Gemma White
Jane Gibian 'Beneath the Tree Line' and Amanda Anastasi 'The Inheritors' " by Martin Duwell, Australian Poetry Review
"To someone who lives a couple of meters above sea level on a sand island, this resonates uncomfortably: an especially disturbing observation." - Martin Duwell
'A grim reality: Amanda Anastasi launches Poetry for the Planet: An Anthology of Imagined Futures', Rochford Street Review
"Acknowledging our reality with courage is an important step to achieving the kind of action that is required" - Amanda Anastasi
'Does Australia Need a Poet Laureate? The answer is in.' by Jane Sullivan, The Sydney Morning Herald
"Last year, Monash University’s Climate Change Communications Research Hub appointed Amanda Anastasi as their Poet in Residence. The Saturday Paper chose its own poet laureate, Maxine Beneba Clarke, and published a poem of hers every week." - Andy Jackson
'Amanda Anastasi: Using Poetry to Communicate the Climate Crisis', Periodicities: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics
"I felt that the poems need to - whatever the specific subjects chosen - look the uncomfortable truth in the eye." - Amanda Anastasi
'Hope Despite Climate Change Denialists Indefatigability' by Noel Turnbull, John Menadue - Pearls and Irritations
"In a sort of unacknowledged legislators of the world program David Holmes, Director of the Monash University Climate Change Communication Research Hub, writes in an annual update on its activities that: 'we are very pleased to launch the work of Amanda Anastasi who has been commissioned by the Hub to write poetry that brings in the science, the politics and the impacts of climate change.' " - Noel Turnbull
'A Conversation We Need to Have: Amanda Anastasi launches Messages from the Embers,' Rochford Street Review
"When seemingly necessary parts of our lives are no longer present, room is created for a new kind of reflection." - Amanda Anastasi
'Diamond Scraps of Sound' A review of The Silences by Angela Gardner, foam:e 14
"A poet needs all their experience, all their senses, all their attention and all the silences to give us this insight. Amanda Anastasi makes this look and sound effortless." - Angela Gardner
'Collaborations!', Mark Roberts Reviews 'The Silences' and 'Scar to Scar', Rochford Street Review
"The Audenesque opening of Anastasi’s ‘The Prodigal Ones’ highlights her confidence in constructing near perfect lines and the setting up of unexpected rhythms." - Mark Roberts
'Best of 2012: The Top 10 Poetic Works' by Ali Alizadeh, Overland Literary Journal
"A confident and very promising debut." - Ali Alizadeh
Poetry Online
Published poems available to read online
Live Encounters June 2024
'Scratches'; 'Ways I Said I Love You Without Saying I Love You'; Monostich Poems in Live Encounters
2024
Cordite Poetry Review
'Interlocutor', 'The First Moments of his Absence', 'Suburban Deer' in
2012, 2016, 2018
Links
Poetry Books
Contact
Email: amandaanastasi12@gmail.com
© 2019