Macquarie Fields High School worked with Papercuts for the first time in 2009, thanks to teacher Kelli McGraw.  The school looked at how the program relates to its locality and how its students could use poetry to interact with another school.

The school

Macquarie Fields is located in Sydney's south-west, and is a combined comprehensive and selective school.

The project

Poet Lachlan Brown workshopped intensively over four weeks (Sept 3-17) with a small selective class of twenty students. Brown was also joined by student teacher Onur Karaozbek.  Starting with a Q & A session and a reading from Brown, the students began their own work with a talismanic object exercise and then drafted with Brown's guidance.  

At the same time, the students composed lines for an epic poem in virtual collaboration with Abbotsleigh - published online from a blog shared by the students.  Visit the schools' Toilet Doors Wiki and teacher Kelli McGraw's blog.

The poet

Lachlan Brown recently completed a PhD at the University of Sydney on the poetry of Kevin Hart.  He is a teacher and poet living in Macquarie Fields, and was the recipient of the 2008 Marten Bequest Traveling Scholarship for Poetry.  Lachlan was a Nightwriting poet in 2008.