WELCOME

Caroline Reid

     POET | PERFORMER | WRITER 

photo: SIA DUFF

BREAKING NEWS: 

'Rhyming Poem' was Highly Commended in the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. 

 All shortlisted poems will be published in Island Magazine, out in March 2023, pre-order HERE. 

Caroline Reid is an Australian poet of Welsh-Irish descent living in Adelaide on Kaurna land. As well as writing and performing poetry, she facilitates creative writing workshops, collaborates with artists and communities, and mentors new & emerging writers in real life and on-line. She has twice represented South Australia in the Australian Poetry Slam at the Sydney Opera House and is active in Adelaide's spoken word scene. Her writing and performances have been described as raw, moving, generous, hysterical, weird and badass.

Her debut collection of poetry and prose SIARAD  (ES-Press 2020) was awarded second prize in the Poetry Book Awards (UK) 2022. Caroline collaborated with sound engineer Jeffrey Zhang to record SIARAD as an experimental audiobook; and adapted it for theatre, performing it as a one-woman spoken word show, most recently at Red Dirt Poetry Festival in Alice Springs.

"... it's the secrets you discover in the slippery strange of words  when the bodyguards of language dissolve" – from SIARAD, 'Poem to my younger self'

Her writing is not soundproof. It works best when read aloud. Weaving together the ordinary and the cosmic, the painful and the redemptive, she writes with black-hole humour and an empathy for humankind, in equal measure. 

Caroline is available for Poetry Commissions, Readings and Performances, Workshops, Mentoring, and as a Speaker for Panels and Keynotes. All inquiries directly to the poet: caroline@carolinereidwrites.com

The longer version:

Caroline Reid found her feet as a writer in the theatre. An educator  and workshop facilitator with more than 20 years experience, she continues to teach writing, poetry and performance in the community. 

Caroline's plays have been produced, performed and recorded for radio. 'Prayer to an Iron God', a play examining the aftershocks of a young person's suicide, is published by Currency Press (2010). 

In 2016 Caroline began to focus on writing and performing poetry (spoken word).  Performance poetry, for her, is the perfect synthesis of writing and performing. From the moment she stepped up to the mic, she felt right at home. She has won multiple slam competitions and featured in events across Australia, both in real life and, adapting to an ever-changing world, online. 

Funded by Arts South Australia, she worked with professional theatre artists over 12 months to transform SIARAD (a Welsh word meaning 'to speak') into a 60 minute spoken-word theatre show, enabling her to explore deeply - both in an intellectual and physical way - the subjects that continue to turn up  in her writing: women, memory and aging, voice and language, family history & relations, loss & estrangement, and the natural world. She has performed SIARAD at numerous festivals including  Adelaide Fringe, Comeback Festival, Mount Gambier Fringe and most recently at the Red Dirt Poetry Festival in Alice Springs.

Caroline also loves to collaborate with emerging film-makers to create video poems, which have screened in Australia and in curated international poetry-film festivals incluing The Ó Bhéal, Ireland, The Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Germany and Poets with a Video Camera: Video Poetry 1980-2020, BC Canada.   

Most recently, she won the Mslexia Poetry Prize for Women, the Woollahra Digital Poetry Prize; and SIARAD was awarded second prize in the Poetry Book Awards 2022.

 "SIARAD is extraordinary work, superbly delivered, set in a dazzling soundscape." Ali Whitelock

Caroline is driven by a passionate belief that the arts are a means of understanding ourselves, each other and the world; and advocates for accessibility to the arts for all members of the community. She has worked with theatre companies, independent artists, arts and community organisations, health and social services, school and councils in urban and rural locations. She taught creative writing classes for 5 years at Mockingbird Lounge and was an arts facilitator and support worker in the performing arts program at Tutti Arts Inc, creating work alongside disabled artists. Caroline has a Bachelor Arts degree in theatre & poetry from Curtin University, a Certificate 3 in Education Support and a Cert 3 in Disability and Aged Care Support.