South appointed to MARION Board
We’re delighted to announce that Barrina South has been appointed to the MARION Board of Directors this month!
Barrina South
Image: Ben Appleton, Photox
Barrina South is a Barkindji poet and critic. As a Red Room Poet, in 2023 Barrina was commissioned to write an ekphrastic poem for the National Gallery of Australia. In 2024, Barrina was awarded a Varuna First Nation fellowship, 2024 MARION Mentorship for early-career writers to work with Australian poet Dan Hogan and was a judge for the 2024 ACT Book of the Year. In the same year she presented a paper at the International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry in New Zealand on the experience of being one of five Australian poets selected to participate in the ‘Invisible Walls: poetry as a Doorway to Intercultural Understanding’ paired with a Korean poet engaging in cross-cultural dialogue, an initiative of the University of South Australia and Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea.
Her work has featured in the Coastlines Journal, Griffith Review, Rabbit, Cordite Poetry Review, Kuracca anthology, Kindred Trees plus Duniyaadaari and Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, both based in Kolkata, India. In 2025, Barrina published her debut poetry collection titled Makarra, through Recent Work Press. Makarra has been shortlisted in the 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry, won the 2025 MARION ACT Literary Award for Poetry, Highly Commended in the 2024 Anne Elder Poetry Award, Highly Commended in the 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and short listed in the 2025 Mary Gilmore Award. Barrina is a member of the Canberra Critics Circle and regularly writes reviews for the Canberra City News and ArtsHub.
Barrina is the third appointee to the MARION Board in 2025, joining Deputy Chair and Director Erin Cross, and Director Michelle Hyde who were both appointed at the MARION Annual General Meeting earlier in the year. Find out more about the MARION Board of Directors here.
