AustLit

'I wandered into a little theatre hosting a spoken word night – a corrugated iron shed on the banks of the Todd River in Alice Springs. It was a still, warm night. There was a foyer space to buy tinnies, and then the space opened up to rows of plastic chairs sloping toward a floodlit stage framed by heavy red curtains. It was a full house; I stood at the back. A girl in shorts and thongs said something about reciting her poem to support her brother, who was there to read his. Dylan Voller walked on stage. He had co-written a poem with his pal Zak Grieve, who is serving a twenty-year mandatory sentence for a murder that a Justice ruled the boy wasn’t even present at.' (Introduction)