Poems painted like brushstrokes across a canvas
There’s no prescribed age or stage of life for being a writer or a poet.
Candles on a cake or a date on a birth certificate don’t govern creativity.
So, in partnership with RMIT University, Monash Council will launch the 2025 Seniors Festival with Poetic Portraits, an intergenerational project combining a participant’s poetry with their portrait to share lived experiences, foster a sense of belonging and challenge harmful ageist stereotypes.
We’ll celebrate creativity, connection and the power of storytelling.
The aim of the intergenerational project is to showcase creative talent and create a sense of belonging among all Monash community members by inviting 20 creative writers -10 participants aged 60 and older; and 10 participants aged between 18 and 35 - to take part.
Michelle Pan, mother of six-month-old son Alwin, had always been interested in poetry but never dared believe she’d be a poet.
Until, by chance, she spied a poster promoting Poetic Portraits.
As a new mother, Michelle knew she wanted to connect more with her community during her parental leave.
"It can be isolating and challenging for new mothers, and I am so happy that the council has offered this great opportunity for me to connect with more like-minded people in my community and learn something new,” she said.
Since sending her application to the Poetic Portraits team, Michelle has found increasing confidence in her ability to capture her feelings and experiences in words on a page.
As well as her poetry, Michelle draws and paints. Like those two creative pursuits, her writing has been something of a cross-cultural experience.
“Drawing on my Chinese heritage, and the lyrical tradition of Chinese poetry, I play with words in abstract, intuitive ways—much like brushstrokes on a canvas,” she said. “Deeply inspired by impressionism, my work, both visual and poetic, seeks to capture fleeting feelings, shifting light and the quiet in-between moments.
“Having an idea, it’s like a picture, like a movie,” she said. “You have a scene in your head. Putting words to it is like putting colours to it.”
“It’s very metaphoric, very abstract, very conceptual. Like an impressionist painter. So readers can interpret your words and connect it with their own feelings and ideas. Capturing that feeling, connecting using your words to have an interaction with other people.”
Motherhood presents its challenges to a budding writer. Harnessing those fleeting moments of inspiration,and then balancing them with her responsibilities to a young son, makes it difficult to schedule the writing time needed to get ideas down on paper.
“I’m lucky, I have a pretty good memory,” Michelle said. “I want to exactly capture that moment. If something really touches you, you will remember it and you really want to revisit it.”
One such fleeting moment, captured in verse in an abstract way, happened after Michelle caught a glimpse of her sleeping son. The dinosaurs on his hat (pictured) seemed to smile at her.
He was asleep
Facing the other way
I stare and stare
Staring at the sunshine
Shining quietly
The little dinosaurs on his hat
Were smiling at me
Time became vacuum
I forgot heartbeat
Michelle said she’d always been interested in poetry, but the poetry she did as a young girl at school in China was very structured and formatted. She’s now embracing writing poetry that allows her more freedom to express herself and explore what she is seeing and experiencing in the world around her.
“You need to express yourself as a human being,” she said.
HELEN'S KITCHEN SINK POETRY
Glen Waverley's Helen Cobb, 94, has penned poems most of her life. Council's Poetic Portraits project has given her the opportunity to share her prolific body of work.
READ HELEN'S STORY
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT
www.monash.vic.gov.au/poetic-portraits