The The NSW Writers' Centre

Poetry Assessments

You write your poems but sometimes wonder how to tell if they’re any good. You think they could be better, but want some objective feedback. You get rejections from journals but no advice on how you can improve your work.

If this sounds like you, then you’re in luck! It’s difficult to find a service that provides professional feedback for poets on their work – until now. The NSW Writers’ Centre has developed these half hour assessments for aspiring poets who would like to receive general feedback on their work.

How it works: the assessments will use examples from specific poems to give a general assessment of how your work is progressing, where you may need to direct more attention, what you can do to improve your work and where you could turn to for inspiration and guidance. Your assessment will be a 30-minute face-to-face consultation with one of our experienced poetry assessors. It will not be possible to provide detailed feedback on each of the poems.

Next Dates

• Saturday 5 May- Judith Beveridge

Booking In

The cost of a 30-minute assessment is $75 for members and $100 for non-members. Please call the Centre on (02) 9555 9757 to book an appointment.

Once you have made your appointment, you will need to provide the following materials at least ten days before your assessment:

• Maximum 10 pages of poetry (this can be made up of between 3 and 10 poems)

Submitted materials must be typed in 1.5 or double spacing. You can email your materials to the Centre or mail them to the address below. If emailing, please send your poems as a single word document. You can email your materials to the Centre or mail them to the following address:

NSW Writers’ Centre
PO Box 1056
Rozelle NSW 2039

About the Assessors

Judith Beveridge has published four books of poetry all of which have won major prizes. Her most recent book is Storm and Honey (Giramondo, 2009). In 2005 she was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for excellence in literature. She is the poetry editor for Meanjin and teaches poetry at Post Graduate level at the University of Sydney and has also taught at Newcastle University and University of Technology, Sydney. Her poems are widely anthologised and are studied in schools and universities.