Workshop: Stalking the Jaguar: the techniques of poet

Sarah Holland-Batt, with Esther Ottaway

The poetry collection The Jaguar, by Australian poet Sarah Holland-Batt, bravely and lyrically illuminates end-of-life experiences, grief, and love. It won the 2023 Stella Prize, the 2023 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award, and the 2023 Queensland Premier's Award for State Significance, and was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize and longlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the ALS Gold Medal. It was also named The Australian's 2022 Book of the Year.

In this workshop, poet Esther Ottaway will share these award-winning poems and speak about some of the techniques Sarah Holland-Batt uses, particularly extended metaphor. You will have the opportunity to try these techniques and learn how you can apply them to make your own poetry more powerful, resonant, and memorable.

Content notification: discusses end-of-life matters.

Esther Ottaway has been shortlisted for many international prizes, and published in prestigious journals in the US, UK, New Zealand, and widely in Australia, including in Best of Australian Poems and The Australian. She is the 2022 winner of the $25,000 Tim Thorne Prize for Poetry and People’s Choice in the Tasmanian Literary Awards, and was longlisted in the 2025 awards. Esther writes poems on Tasmanian life, love, family, women’s experiences, and neurodivergence, and is working on a collection about joy. She co-convenes Hobart’s Women’s Poetry Oasis workshop series.