Words from friend Maia Irell “This beautiful man, Petrus Spronk meant so much to all of us together and apart. As Tina (Banitska) said, we’ve lost the patriarch of our town. Friend, son, father, uncle, brother, beloved artist, thinker, disciplined Do-er. Ceramic bowls, casts of pears, of rabbits, mud balls, sand sculptures, mirrors of birds […]
The Words in Winter name carries a unique resonance across the Central Highlands, representing a trio of distinct festivals. While the Central Goldfields festival in Maryborough celebrates in May, the Daylesford and Hepburn Springs festival and the Trentham festival wait for the chill of August. The shared roots of 2002 Words in Winter began in […]
As part of the Words in Winter festival in Daylesford, Australian poets with a passion for the natural world are invited to enter the 2026 Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize, offering a $1000 major prize for unpublished work. The prize honours Venie Holmgren, who began writing poetry in her late 50s and went on to […]
trip a wheelie suitcase carried by its handle one wheel wiggles they come for cezanne and art’s heavy hitters still life in aix balance at the calder exhibit a one-legged woman bip bip BIP BIP BIP BIP too close to art distant squarks lasso the summer sky thirsty seagulls all quiet in montparnasse cemetery a […]
Words in Winter has appointed Aunty Alison McRae – a Dja Dja Wurrung, Gunditjmara and Yorta Yorta Elder and leader – as its inaugural Cultural Advisor. The friendship between festival producer Devon Taylor and Aunty Alison began at Paradise Bookshop in Daylesford. That connection has now deepened into a formal role that will see Aunty […]
Rajdhani Express Runs between Delhi and Varinasi in India Rajdhani Express is a travelling limbo With time standing still on both sides of the window. With goats in the hallways and chooks on the racks Jammed in between luggage small kids and backpacks, It’s wise on this journey to chain bags to seats And this […]
etryetc. hot day in lyon with his picasso t-shirt a man wipes off sweat a plane tree leaf rising in the breeze her striped shirt heat wave lyon’s pastel buildings blanch a little more – Bill Wootton Bill likes to travel in France. France does not care much for air conditioning. Local Lines features poetry […]
A Winter Meditation “For the poor wren, the most diminutive of birds, will fight, her young ones in the nest, against the owl.” Lady Macduff. Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Diminutive wrens flitting from ground to tree On freezing cold mornings, in furious southerlies Along with the thorn-bills and red fire-tail finches You tiniest of birds in these […]
