Isabella G. Mead is a poet from Naarm/Melbourne. Her debut poetry collection, The Infant Vine, is published by UWAP.
Her work has also appeared in Meanjin, Island, Rabbit, Westerly, Cordite Poetry Review, Anthropocene, Going Down Swinging and Plumwood Mountain Journal. In 2024, she won the Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize. In 2023, she was shortlisted for the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize.
You can listen to an interview with Isabella on 3CR here.
You can read an interview with Isabella in HOWL Magazine here.
You can read reviews of The Infant Vine in Books+Publishing, ArtsHub and Compulsive Reader.
The Infant Vine (2024)
Lyrical and narrative-driven with playful and fantastical elements woven throughout, the poems in The Infant Vine reflect on how ordinary moments become charged with significance and strangeness when disaster strikes. Such moments make imaginary worlds possible: sleep deprivation transfigures a new mother into a leafy seadragon; a novel virus gives women the power to reproduce via parthenogenesis like the eponymous bonnethead shark.
Themes of transformation, metamorphosis and preservation—of life, of memory and the environment—permeate Isabella G. Mead’s debut collection. This is a rich and compelling exploration on caregiving and creativity in the context of global crises.
Poetry
2024
‘On Waking’ – Poetry and Prints for Palestine (Illographo Press), October 2024 | ‘Twenty Ways to Describe Suzanne Bergne’s ‘Dish’ (1989)’ – Anthropocene, September 2024 | 'Reflections on a Waiting Room Lithograph' – Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 112: Treat, 2024 | 'Parturition Chairs I-V' – Island (Online), 2024 | ‘I Cutlass Spent Days With an X' – Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 111: Baby, 2024
2023
'Ode to a BabyCentre Forum' – Rabbit, Issue 38: Archive, 2023 | 'Fool at Perigee' – Going Down Swinging, Hell & High Water, 2023 | 'Megafauna' – Westerly 68.1, 2023 | 'The Transfer' – Poetry of Home: The Liquid Amber Prize Anthology, 2023 | 'Two Cities' – Poetry of Home: The Liquid Amber Prize Anthology, 2023 | 'Visions' – Plumwood Mountain Journal, Vol.10, No.01, 2023 | 'The Salience Network [Street Scenes, Heidelberg]' – Cordite Poetry Review, No Theme 12, 2023 | 'Night Notes' – Island, Issue 167, 2023 | 'The Human Body' – Island, Issue 167, 2023 | 'Screensaver' – foam:e, Issue 20, 2023
2022
'On googling saint olivia palermo [images]’ – Rabbit, Issue 36: Art, 2022 | 'The Green Wedge' – Island, Issue 166, 2022 | 'Personal Slalom' – Meanjin, Spring Issue, 2022
2017 & 2018
'The Cholmondeley Ladies' – Rabbit, Issue 26: Belonging, 2018 | 'The Bee' – Going Down Swinging, No. 38, 2017 | 'Final hours, Sputnik 2' – Cordite Poetry Review, 2017
Earlier publications appear in Going Down Swinging, No. 30 (2010), Blue Dog Australian Poetry, Vol.9 No.18 (2010), Visible Ink 22 (2010) and Nth Degree: New Australian Writing (2010)
Awards
2024
Winner of the 2024 Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize | Shortlisted in the 2024 Wells International Poetry Competition | Shortlisted in the Westival International Poetry Competition 2024
2023
Longlisted in the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's International Poetry Prize 2023 for the poems 'What to Forget When You're Expecting' and 'The Wing' | Second place in the 2023 Liquid Amber Press Poetry Prize for 'The Transfer' | Shortlisted for the 2023 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize for the poems 'Night Notes' and 'The Human Body' | Longlisted for the SCWC 2023 Poetry Award for the poem 'Dinnertime' | Longlisted for the 2023 Peter Porter Poetry Prize for the poem 'Bonnethead'
2022
Winner in two categories of the 2022 Queensland Regional Arts Awards (QRAA) Ekphrasis Challenge
2017
Shortlisted for the 2017 Nillumbik Ekphrasis Poetry Prize
2010
Highly commended in the 2010 Poetronica Awards for the online poem/artwork, ‘For I Will Fly to You’ (commissioned by Experimenta)