Poetry often expresses our histories. Recovering poetry can also act as a counter-form of history making. For those living in diaspora, poetry recovers “lost worlds” that encapsulate shared experiences that have been blurred, or altogether buried, under canonical framings of the past.
The interplay between poetry and diasporic expression offers an entry into multiple histories. In this sense poetry that emanates from diaspora provides a sense of belonging to more than one history, to more than one time and place.
Indeed, poetry, as penned by Greek Australian Patrick White Awardees, Dimitri Tsaloumas (1994), Antigone Kefala (2022), and П. O (2024), gifts those living in diaspora permission to express belonging to both here and there, now and then.
This year’s 2025 Tsaloumas Memorial Lecture will explore how poets writing from diaspora have grappled with the omnipresent weight of pain and displacement from a land or community, of being an outsider in a new one.
Taking the form of an inter-generational dialogue between poets, writers and scholars, “Poetry, History and Diaspora: Echoing the Past, Poeting from the Present”, will explore the layered ways that poetry captures both lack and excess, loss and separation, while also providing refreshing possibilities for adventures of identity, reimaginings of traditions, and reworkings of affiliations.
Panellists include Nikos Papastergiadis, Angela Costi and George Mouratidis. Chaired by Andonis Piperoglou.
Bio:
- Nikos Papastergiadis is an Honorary Professor at the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. He was formerly a Visiting Professor in the School of Art, Design and Media, at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Chair of the International Advisory Board for the Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore. Co-chair of the Cultural Advisory Board for the Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture, Melbourne.
His current research focus is a project on photography and memory, as well as another on the transformation arts precincts. His publications include Modernity as Exile (1993), Dialogues in the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000), Metaphor and Tension (2004) Spatial Aesthetics: Art Place and the Everyday (2006), Cosmopolitanism and Culture (2012), Ambient Perspectives (2014), On Art and Friendship (2020), The Museums of the Commons (2020, The Cosmos in Cosmopolitanism (2023).
His new book the John Berger and Me: A Migrant’s Eye, was published in 2024. He is also the author of numerous essays which have been translated into over a dozen languages and appeared in major catalogues such as the Biennales of Sydney, Liverpool, Istanbul, Gwanju, Taipei, Lyon, Thessaloniki and Documenta 13.
- Angela Costi is a poet and writer with a background in social justice, law and community arts. Since 1994, her creative gatherings, including plays, short fiction and essays, have been published, performed, awarded, broadcast and translated. The author of six poetry collections. Her recent chapbook is Adversarial Practice, published in Cordite Poetry Review, which was commended in the Wesley Michel Wright Prize 2024. She received the High Commendation for Contribution to Arts and Culture, Merri-bek Award 2021. She is known as Αγγελική Κωστή among the Cypriot Greek diaspora. She lives on unceded Wurundjeri land.
- Dr. George Mouratidis is an early career researcher, poet and translator. He is a Fellow of the Literary Studies program in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, where he writes on the literature of the Beat Generation and Counterculture. He co-founded the literary magazine Kalliope X in 2020 for which he was director and poetry editor and is currently a committee member of the Melbourne School of Literature (MSL) where he teaches Beat poetics. Works include his translation of poet Nikos Nomikos, Noted Transparencies (Owl Press, 2016) and his debut collection of poetry, Angel Frankenstein (Soul Bay, 2018).
- Andonis Piperoglou is the Hellenic Senior Lecturer in Global Diasporas at the University of Melbourne. He is a specialist in migration history and has published extensively on Greek Australia. His is editor (with Francesco Ricatti) of Researching Migration on Indigenous Lands: Challenges, Reflections, Pathways (Springer: 2025) and his book, Making Greek Settlers: Racial Inclusions and Exclusions in White Australia, will be published with the University of Illinois Press in 2026. In the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Andoni teaches subjects on migration and diaspora.
Event Details:
- When: Thursday 13 November 2025, 7pm
- Panel Discussion Speakers: Professor Nikos Papastergiadis, Angela Costi, Dr George Mouratidis, Dr Andonis Piperoglou
- Seminar: Tsaloumas Memorial Lecture: Poetry, History and Diaspora: Echoing the Past, Poeting from the Present
- Where: The Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture, Mezzanine Level, 168 Lonsdale St., Melbourne
- Language: English
- Joint event between the Greek Community of Melbourne and the Greek Australian Cultural League
- Sponsors: Helen Nickas – Owl Publishing
