Cirrus@Austlit

'Geoff Goodfellow recently appeared at the 2021 Adelaide Writer’s Week on three occasions. Speaking on the panel ‘Suburban Dreaming’ about his new prose memoir Out of Copley Street: a working-class boyhood. On the poetry program, reading from his festival released poetry collection Preparing for Business – and on the Twilight Series ‘Unstable Ground’ where he delivered his ten minute speech ‘A working poet in the time of Covid’.

'On October 29th, 2020, Out of Copley Street: a working-class boyhood was launched by Professor Rick Sarre at the Hawke Centre to a live audience of approximately 300 people. The event was recorded by the Hawke Centre and You Tube records show 440+ viewings have since occurred.

'Up to date reviews of his prose and poetry are featured on his website www.geoffgoodfellow.com

'Geoff is well-known as a confronting performer of his gutsy, colloquial, humorous (and sometimes savagely revealing) poems. He began writing and publishing in Adelaide during 1983 and since publishing his first book in 1986, has travelled nationally and internationally: USA, Canada, Cuba, UK, Europe and China, performing at literary festivals, universities as writer-in-residence, visiting penal institutions, dedicating his career to giving voice to working class people. He is an intent listener and an acute observer. In 1990 he stopped work on every major building and construction site in Australia and recorded the voices of that industry. Factories followed, along with jails, youth training centres and drug & alcohol rehabilitation units. He is equally well known in schools and colleges where his work often features on the English curriculum. He has been a guest presenter at the Center for the Study of Working Class Life, Stony Brook, USA. His poems feature over multiple years in collections of The Best Australian Poems. He was short-listed for the Age Book of the Year Award in 2002 for Poems for a Dead Father. In 2009, while recovering from cancer, he won the ABC TV ‘Bush Slam’ competition in Stanley, Tasmania. His poem ‘The Violence of Work’ is represented in The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry, edited by John Kinsella, 2009. His Anti-Ice poem ‘Monologue to a Wayward Niece’ appears in large format framed prints in the SA Supreme, District & Magistrates Courts, as well as the Tasmanian Supreme Court and the Ipswich Court in Queensland. His poem ‘An Uncertain Future’ was displayed on the courtyard wall of the SA Supreme Court as an 8.0m x 2.4m poster for three months during the Adelaide Festival in 2012. Geoff firmly believes that poetry can have a social usefulness. He has long stressed to school students that ‘language is power’ and the key to moving forward is being able to use language effectively, even simple language.

'Geoff conducts workshops with senior school students on the writing of poetry and prose, both in South Australian and Tasmanian schools. He has toured Tasmanian schools on an annual basis for over twenty years and his poem ‘Reminders’ was set on the ‘Love Poetry’ unit for the TCE for nine years. His textbook The People’s Poet Transformed is used widely in schools to assist teachers and students to understand how the ‘transformation task’ can be achieved using Geoff’s poems and short stories. This task is now part of the new national curriculum.

'He often writes in the vernacular and has spent his entire writing career giving voice to those who might otherwise go largely unrecorded in literature.' (Provided by author)