Pam Schindler is a poet, bushwalker and former university reference librarian, living by the sea at Blackmans Bay, lutruwita-Tasmania, after 20 years in southeast Queensland. Anne Kellas has written that her poems are characterised by “a bright deep knowing” and “lissom, nimble, honey-sharp words.” In launching Pam’s second book, say, a river, Jeff Harpeng said her voice is one of those which “Ring the living bell,” to quote Melanie Safka’s song, “evoking … the erotica of communion with the world.”
Besides the natural world, Pam’s poems are interested in relationships, love and loss, perception and time, and have appeared in Australian magazines including Island, Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal, Verita La, and anthologies. Her work has been commended in the WB Yeats Prize Australia (2019) and in the Philip Bacon Ekphrasis Award (2016).
Pam is a Hawthornden Fellow, receiving a residency at Hawthornden Castle in 2013. In 2021 she was one of 23 Tasmanian poets participating in the Poetry for a More Than Human World project, led by Kristen Lang. Pam’s books are: A sky you could fall into (Post Pressed, 2010) and say, a river (Ginninderra Press, 2023).
Hear Pam at the Festival during the guest poet sessions on both Saturday and Sunday (12th & 13th).