https://www.bluebottlejournal.com/

Blue Bottle Journal, Brisbane (2025)

22/03/2025

Super colourful, sensory-rich work from Elspeth Findlay in our journal today, more great bird poetry! 👏

Dwelling in community in the Northern Rivers of NSW, Elspeth Findlay’s poetry and prose burrows into live-wild and loving cultures, inciting radical metamorphosis needed in these incendiary times. Published in the Northerly, Coastlines, Emergent Literary Journal, Poetry for the Planet anthology, it also tours with the Bimblebox 153 Birds exhibition. Her Fiction ‘The Diviner’ is in Jacaranda and won the National Campus Writing Prize. Her first poetry collection was launched by Dangerously Poetic Press in October 2024.

In a Blue Bottle first, this is a reworked version of a poem Elspeth previously published in her debut collection. She really wanted to see this version out in the world and we couldn't agree more! 🩵

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/the-celebrant

04/03/2025

We're hunkering down for hurricane weather here in Meanjin with this vivid, surreal piece by Christian Ward ☺️

Christian Ward is a UK-based poet, with recent work in Southword, Ragaire, Okay Donkey, and Roi Faineant. Longlisted for the 2023 National Poetry Competition (UK), he won a number of competitions in 2024, including the Maria Edgeworth, Pen to Print, London Independent Story Prize and the Shahidah Janjua Poetry Competition 👀

"(I mistook) a cuttlefish for poetry" is truly one of the most brilliant lines we've ever published and it was an absolute joy to find this visual for the piece 🦉

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/substitutes

07/02/2025

We've got a brand new poem up in the journal now from a lovely emerging poet out of NSW, Reilly Loughlin 💌

Reilly Loughlin was raised in the Northern Rivers in NSW, and recently completed her Bachelor of Writing at UQ. You can find her in UQ’s Exordium issue 11, arguing the merits of fanfiction, or in Jacaranda Journal edition 11.2. She enjoys wooden floorboards, pelicans, and hosting dinners for her friends 🫶

Anyone who enjoys pelicans is a friend of ours 😂

http://www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/these-our-actors

21/01/2025

It's Mark's second outing with Blue Bottle! His first poem this time last year was about snow, so it's only fitting this piece is full of fire and heat 🔥

Mark O’Flynn’s novel The Last Days of Ava Langdon (UQP) was short listed for the Miles Franklin Award, 2017, the Prime Minister’s Literary Award as well as winning the Voss Literary Award, 2017. His most recent collection of poetry is Undercoat (Liquid Amber Press, 2022) ⭐

Check out Mark's finely polished piece online now! The 'air's dirty paragraph' was a particular thrill 👏

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/cockatoos-after-fire

18/01/2025

We're bringing this one to you late tonight as we've been wrapped up today in hosting a fabulous in-person event at Can You Keep A Secret ? 🩵 Please welcome Leni 👏

Leni Shilton is a poet and verse novelist. Her book Walking with camels won the 2020 NT Chief Ministers Book Award. Leni’s poetry work appears in journals and anthologies, and she judged the 2020 Stella Prize. After many years in Mparntwe | Alice Springs, she now lives on Dja Dja Wurrung country 🥰

Leni is another amazing human we rubbed shoulders with at Red Dirt Poetry Festival last year. It's no coincidence we've published so many friends from that time 🩵

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/painting-the-past

13/01/2025

We've been overwhelmed by high calibre work lately and Allison Camp has stunned us with these two gems 💎

Allison Camp (she/her) is a Washington State native now living and working in North Carolina. She is a scientist by training and has a deep affinity for biology and the fascinating details that abound in nature. Connect with her on Substack: https://allisoncamp.substack.com/ or Instagram: .curiosity ⚡

Savour these slick, highly detailed poems on death and decomposition. We're so lucky to be sharing such top notch international talent 🩵👏

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/two-poems1193034

06/01/2025

It is a pleasure and a privilege to bring you our first published poem of 2025 from the wonderful Paris Rosemont 🧡

Paris Rosemont is the author of Banana Girl (WestWords, 2023), shortlisted for the Association for the Study of Australian Literature’s 2024 Mary Gilmore Award for a first volume of poetry. Her second collection, Barefoot Poetess, is due for release in early 2025. Paris may be found at www.parisrosemont.com 👏

Whether on the page or the stage, Paris rocks her erotic, fierce work oozing with style 🍊

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/ceviche

12/10/2024

This tender, hyper-colourful portrayal of grief grabbed our attention and wouldn't let go 🩵

Kate worked as a counsellor in the NHS, then voluntarily in a hospice setting. She lives by the Atlantic in Cornwall, has been involved with XR, and is trying to learn BSL. (She dislikes abbreviations …) She feels writing itself is enough to quicken the blood — publication an affirming bonus 🙌

We especially loved Kate's final stanza, where her tactile-visual poem reaches its crescendo 👀

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/a-brief-history-of-touch

28/09/2024

Blue Bottle is a journal that prides itself on rewarding perseverance and kindness. Glen Hunting has both of these in spades as a poet, human, and good egg 🩵

Glen Hunting is a poet living in Mparntwe on Arrernte country (Alice Springs, NT). Amongst other things, he writes about notions of home, belonging, and estrangement, as well as the hopes and frustrations surrounding allyship, reciprocity, and empowerment 👏

We're so pleased that Glen has cracked the Blue Bottle code (whatever that means), seeing his work develop and shine brighter with every new submission ✨

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/marking-time

18/09/2024

We know what we like at Blue Bottle but when something totally out of the box comes along and grabs us, it really doesn't let go. This utter gem from utter gem still has us in its grip 💎

Zoe Odessa (she/her) is a 23-year-old poet and writer who wishes to be utterly consumed by words. Currently based in Cairns, Australia, on Yirrganydji land, she is at the tail end of her USYD B.A in English Literature. She loves difficult women and challenging feminist literature. She has previously had poetry published in Sour Cherry Mag. You can find her on her instagram

Savour this fiercely devoted, infectiously sensory, cyclically confessional new piece online now ❤️‍🔥💥✨

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/girly

14/09/2024

The day's finally here where we get to publish the endlessly kind, fabulously talented 🩵

Dave Clark is a reliable human with unreliable health.
He is a writer-poet with chronic fatigue syndrome, living in Mparntwe (Alice Springs).
His writing speaks into grief, illness, justice and how we love and laugh together.
Dave works as a counsellor, creating space for stories of significance.
Instagram/X:

We had a conversation with Dave months ago about unlocking difficult subject matter in poetry and letting the subject let you in. It's so wonderful to see how Dave has let this topic lead the way in his new work 🙌

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/youre-doing-a-lot-more-than-usual

02/09/2024

This is the second outing in Blue Bottle for Angela Arnold and it compliments her first poem SUPER well. Highly encourage you to jump back to 2023 to re-read "cracking you open" then come right back for this beauty! 🐅

Angela Arnold (she/her) lives in Wales. She’s also an artist, a creative gardener and an environmental campaigner. Her poems have been published in print, anthologies and online, in the UK and elsewhere. Collection: In Between (Stairwell Books, 2023). Twitter:

This piece moved us with its fine attention to detail, abstract and surreal use of language and mastery of tone 👏

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/snare

28/05/2024

It's better late than never at Blue Bottle with this stunning piece on birds and innocence from John Bartlett 🐦

John Bartlett is the author of eleven books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. He was winner of the 2020 Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize, Highly Commended in the 2021 Mundaring Poetry Competition. His latest poetry collection is Excitations of Entanglement 📚

Head over to our journal now to read John's piece in full. John has been a persistent submitter and it's wonderful to finally give his work a welcome home here 🏡

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/magpie-song

14/05/2024

Occasionally, we'll get knocked off our feet with a piece that's unlike anything we've ever published. This experimental, fierce poem by Tony Norris is one such work ✨

Tony (he/him) is a Meanjin/Brisbane-based performance poet. He has been a state finalist for the National Slam Championship and has hosted Rainbow Open Mic Nights with Gold Coast Libraries. Tony started out at Ruckus Youth and Voices of Colour and has been a featured poet at numerous creative events across Brisbane 👏

Hearing Tony read this one aloud is a special treat. If you get the chance, make sure to catch Tony around the traps 🩵

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/boy-becomes-venus

03/05/2024

We've been so excited to bring you this one from Izzy Roberts-Orr, whose work we've been fond of for quite some time 🩵

Izzy Roberts-Orr is a poet, writer, broadcaster and arts worker based on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Izzy is Creative Producer for Red Room Poetry and a 2020-2022 recipient of the Australia Council Marten Bequest Scholarship for Poetry. Her debut collection, Raw Salt (Vagabond, 2024) was the recipient of a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship, and longlisted for the Colorado Prize for Poetry 💪

This stunning piece holds true to Country and is so tender in its speaker's voice. Enjoy it online now 👀

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/spotted-gum

22/04/2024

Apologies for being a day late on this one but Maddy is currently flying home to Brissie from the US now, so it feels like a timely coming home present 🥰

Madeleine Dale grew up on Tamborine Mountain and now lives in Brisbane. She holds first-class honours and a Masters degree in creative writing from the University of Queensland, where she is currently completing a PhD. Her first chapbook, On Fire with Dangerous Cargo, was published by Queensland Poetry in 2023. Her first full length collection, Portraits of Drowning, won the 2023 Thomas Shapcott Prize and is forthcoming from UQP ✨

What a fantastic title and a sharp, polished poem to join our catalogue. We know Maddy's aesthetic was destined to align with ours one of these days 🩵

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/the-pearl-as-immune-response

14/04/2024

We're making time and holding space for this gentle, fierce poem by Rae White amid personal chaos 🐟

Rae White (they/them) is a non-binary transgender poet, writer and zine maker. They're the award-winning author of poetry collections Milk Teeth (UQP 2018) and Exactly As I Am (UQP 2022), and the Bitsy game stand up. Rae is the founding editor of , a journal for non-binary creatives 🩵

Head over to our journal to read Rae's second Blue Bottle outing, which tells such a local, vital tale 🙌

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/gibbous-season

07/04/2024

A couple of sparkling gems from Genevieve Osborne tonight, so rousing in their sensory detail and touching in their personality 🩵

Genevieve Osborne is a Sydney writer. Her poems have appeared in various journals including Southerly, Meanjin, Island, Red Room Poetry's The Disappearing and The Emma Press Anthology of the Sea (UK). She was joint winner of the Henry Lawson Prize for Poetry and runner-up in the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. Genevieve spends a fair amount of time thinking about food and cooking. Her favourite place to be when growing up was in the kitchen, watching her mother cook. She says her mother was the best cook she has ever known 🍝

Genevieve is one of the most patient and resilient poets we've ever published. Take your time with these two 🐟

www.bluebottlejournal.com/home/two-poems9337735

Blue Bottle Journal