Murwillumbah poet releases award-winning debut

AWARD-winning Murwillumbah poet Damien Becker is releasing his debut poetry collection, Thin Reed Throat.

The manuscript for the collection won the 2024 Flying Islands Poetry Manuscript Competition in November 2024 and draws on his life with cystic fibrosis and as a lung transplant organ recipient.

Poems from the collection have appeared in Australian Poetry Journal, Best of Australian Poems, Cordite, and Suburban Review, among others.

Becker has won many awards for his spoken word performances and last year performed with his wife, poet Sarah Temporal, in London in the UK, and on the Isle of Man.

The poet said that bringing years of dedicated writing and reflection together into this collection of poems had been a joyful process.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to know that these words I have spent so much love and care crafting can now be shared in one physical artefact,” Becker said.

“In an increasingly digitised and AI-created content culture, something like a poetry collection becomes an almost sacred object.”

The Flying Islands award panel judges described Becker’s collection as a powerful and uplifting story.

“A serious book on an important topic, ambitious in its scope, and beautifully written, utilising poetry to its full capacity,” said the judges in a statement.

“It moves easily and naturally between laugh-out-loud funny and tear-evoking.”

Thin Reed Throat is part of the concurrent 2026 Flying Islands Pocket Poet series. Other authors in this year’s series included Gillian Rubenstein, Dael Allison, Kit Kelen, Ronald Araña Atilano, Josh Stenberg, and David Grant Lloyd.

The official launch will be held at Poets Out Loud in M-Arts Murwillumbah on February 12. For information, visit poetsoutloud.org