Australian Botanic Garden

NURTURING A LOVE OF WORDS

It’s hard to imagine a better place than a poem forest in which to inspire children to write about nature.

With that in mind, the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan and Red Room Poetry recently joined forces to provide local school students with a series of nature writing workshops in the Garden's enchanting Poem Forest.

Launched in 2021, the forest is being gradually planted in the heart of the Garden on a site that includes remnants of the critically endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland and Western Sydney Dry Rainforest – ecosystems that provide important havens for native wildlife. By removing invasive weeds and planting new trees, the project is helping to restore biodiversity, while encouraging cultural connections across various communities.

The Poem Forest is set on the traditional land of the Dharawal people and as students arrived for the workshops they were greeted with a smoking ceremony conducted by Uncle Ivan and Uncle Eddie, who also spent time talking about Country.

First Nations poets Aunty Verna Barker, Luke Patterson, Kirli Saunders and Lyndsay Urquhart then taught the children about poetic techniques and how to use them in their own writing, while the Garden’s education team also provided hands-on lessons on native plants.

As the workshops drew to a close, students took time to reflect on their learning and write an original poem, which they were invited to submit for the annual Poem Forest competition.

For every poem received, Poem Forest plants a tree – allowing students to take positive climate action while having their thoughts on the environment heard. Last year more than 5,000 seedlings were planted, including native eucalypt, “Poem Forest enables Acacia (wattle) and angophora, as well as students to take Melaleuca styphelioides (Prickly Paperbark) positive climate action” and Melia azedarach (White Cedar).

The project aims to plant 22,000 trees within three years, all of which will be grown in the Garden's nursery from seed that has been wild-collected and stored in the Australian PlantBank. THE POEM FOREST PRIZE Students, teachers and communities have until 23 September to submit entries for this year’s Poem Forest competition, with the winners set to be announced in November. Unveiled in 2021, the annual competition invites young people to create poems inspired by the natural environment. For every poem received, a native tree is planted in the Australian Botanic Garden, creating a Poem Forest for future generations. All Poem Forest entries go in the running for a range of prizes valued at more than $5,000, including cash, book packs, Garden tours, trees and publication opportunities. The entries are also published on the digital POEM FOREST on Red Room Poetry’s website, which reaches a worldwide audience of more than 550,000 readers.