Todd Turner - Breathwork

3pm for 3.30pm Sunday 29th November

Todd Turner in conversation with Sarah Day
‘There are those who, facing difficulty, do not allow themselves to be broken.’

In this remarkable collection, Todd Turner examines the redemptive power of poetry amidst human suffering, using the life of John Keats as a poignant lens for love, loss, and transcendence. These finely wrought poems align vulnerability with a ‘fired resilience’, vibrating with the grace and gravity of Alice Oswald’s observation that ‘poems are literally made of breath.’ Through dialogue, allegory, and concise form, Turner brings us into the lived experience of one engaging the world with interior grit and a startling, translucent truth.

Breathwork is as masterful as it is resonant with the hard-won wisdom of a poet deeply attuned to the shaping forces of grief, trauma, and suffering, and to the corrective powers of love and belonging. Turner’s poems are that rare combination of grit and beauty, fire and polish, poise and risk-taking. His sequences of short pieces build into beautifully weighted larger structures. The poems which celebrate the life of Keats are odes to resilience and endurance. - Judith Beveridge


Todd Turner is an Australian poet and master goldsmith. He is the author of three collections of poetry, including his latest, Breathwork, which launched at Keats House, London, in October 2026. His poems are anthologised and published widely, appearing in prominent journals such as The Madrid Review; Meanjin; Overland; Southword; and Poetry London. A co-winner of the Jean Cecily Drake-Brockman Prize, his debut collection was shortlisted for both the Dame Mary Gilmore Award and the Anne Elder Award. His work has also been highly commended for the Blake and Newcastle Poetry Prizes, with Robert Gray naming him an outstanding poet of his generation.

Sarah Day’s books have received the Queensland Premier’s, ACT Poetry Prize, Wesley Michel Wright prizes, and Anne Elder Award, and been shortlisted for Premiers’ and Prime Minister’s awards. She has collaborated with musicians in the UK and Australia, and judged national poetry, fiction, and nature-writing competitions. Her ninth collection, Slack Tide (Pitt Street Poetry) was shortlisted for the Tasmanian Literary Awards. Her poem ‘The Orphan’ was shortlisted in the 2025 Peter Porter Prize.