Join us to celebrate the Melbourne launch of Mal McKimmie’s The Diwan of Nawid and Toby Davidson’s The Grand Reopening, both published by Puncher & Wattmann.

The Diwan of Nawid is the fourth poetry collection by Mal McKimmie, winner of the 2012 Age Poetry Book of the Year, and is described by Judith Beveridge as ‘like nothing else in Australian poetry—a spiritual text of sublime beauty’. The Diwan of Nawid records the prayers, questionings and exaltations of the seeker Nawid as he treads a path to and through his own imperfections, darknesses and doubts. Jennifer Harrison, renowned poet and winner of the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in poetry, will launch this collection. 

The Grand Reopening is Toby Davidson’s third poetry collection. Written at the start of the post-pandemic return to normality, the book celebrates and interrogates multiple versions of openness, from Sydney’s bars to Dublin’s streets and the active volcanoes of Santorini. Praised by Kevin Hart as a searing book of love and mortality, The Grand Reopening is both disciplined and wild, ending with a sequence in the voice of the poet’s own blood. Philip Salom, dual Commonwealth Prize-winning poet and Miles Franklin-shortlisted novelist, will launch this collection. 

Free, but bookings are essential.

Please book here.