Year 7 students at Birrong Boys’ High School were given the opportunity to participate in poetry composing workshops presented in partnership with The Red Room Company and Westwords, the Western Sydney Young People’s Literature Project. The workshops also engaged with The Disappearing, a new free app that geo-locates poetry to place. 

 Participants completed quick writes, group poems and explored a range of poetic forms such as guerilla poetry. These workshops challenge traditional expectations of poetry as students explore their relationship with public places. Poet in residence Candy Royalle gave a spoken word performance and assisted students to compose their own spoken word poems.

As part of the worksop, Candy was also commissioned to produce a new poem, titled 'Boy', in response to her time at Birrong Boys'. A selection of student poems and images will be published in a reclaimed area of the school to be known as Poetry Alley.