Poet’s pen is Mightier

EMERGING writer and spoken word performer Megan J Riedl has self-published a book of her poetry.

Mightier is a collection of poems that “call for a better world.”

“After performing at spoken word events, I had a lot of people asking me where they could access my poems… so I figured I would just put something together myself,” she said.

“I ask the reader to confront their complicity in violence against women, gender inequality, climate change, racism and nuclear proliferation.

“I encourage us to stand up, show up and speak up, ultimately being hopeful in the power of community to enact change.”

Riedl’s favourite poem from the collection is Forever Kind of Love, which she also finds “awesome to perform.”

“It speaks about the insidious nature of violence against women in intimate relationships and how something that could be framed as romance can sneakily become controlling.

“The poem sneaks up on you in a similar way,” Riedl said.

Designing the book with the help of Canva, Riedl enjoyed experimenting with fonts and the format of a page in a new way.

“As a predominantly spoken word poet, I often don’t bother formatting my work, because it’s designed to be read aloud by me, but with a print publication, I really had to pay attention to what it was going to look like.

“I’ve been working on a larger collection with Ren Alessandra from Wordcraft Creative Mentoring, who is also the reigning Australian Poetry Slam Champion, who helped me to think about how to guide readers by editing and formatting the poems,” she said.

It’s Riedl’s hope that readers will come away from the book with fresh perspectives, and the courage to speak up for change, whether within their circles, or more broadly in public.

“Perhaps they will also see themselves reflected in the works and know that they are not alone in their experiences.”

Riedl plans to have a residency at Art Space Ballarat during summer. Visit linktr.ee/meganjriedl to purchase a copy for $20.