Why we need poets more than ever before

International and local poets meet in NSW to celebrate the spoken word, reminding us the power of human communication and connection.
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Image: 2016’s Australian Poetry Slam Champion, Arielle Cottingham. Supplied.

‘Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and circumference of knowledge,’ wrote Percy Shelley in A Defence of Poetry, 1821. Nearly 200 years on and Shelley’s words still reverberate.

Arielle Cottingham, a poet and performance artist out of coastal Texas, now based in Melbourne and 2016’s Australian Poetry Slam Champion reminded ArtsHub of another line in Shelley’s essay: ‘”Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”’

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