Port Stephens author Morgan Bell launches trio of haiku zines for Newcastle Writers Festival

WRITER, poet, teacher, editor, Marine Rescue volunteer; Port Stephens resident Morgan Bell is all of these and more, and she’s just celebrated the launch of a new trio of haiku zines.

In an event held on Thursday 26 March at Tomaree Library as part of the Newcastle Writers Festival 2026, she was joined by friend and fellow author Kerri Shying for a public discussion about the meaning of her poetry, her inspirations and her challenges.

Bell’s haikus are each inspired by and named after a different colour, selected from pencil and paint sets.

The first collection, The Sound of Colour, is themed around flowers; the second, Animalian Bites, around animals; and the third, Glancing The Hold, is all about rocks.

Despite the simple subject matters, all the pieces hold deeper meanings.

They’re sometimes playful, sometimes serious, sometimes biting, but always subversive and inciting reflection.

A major theme in Bell’s poetry is her relationship with constraints, especially as an author struggling with anxiety.

She says self-imposed constraints, like word limits and the 5-7-5 syllables form, are useful for getting inspiration and focusing on concrete, attainable goals, but at the same time they can (and should) be broken out of when they’re not as useful anymore.

All of Bell’s haikus, for instance, have titles that “sneakily manage to get an extra word in”, and don’t always have to adhere pedantically to the 5-7-5 form.

The idea for writing a collection of haikus came about during the pandemic and the ensuing social isolation, introducing another one of the author’s main focuses: community.

The traditional, simple and even conservative haiku form was chosen because, in Bell’s words, “We were looking for routine, reminders about humanity and connections with the past. We were feeling very alien at the time.”

Her appeal to all current and prospective artists of any kind is to join a community and “put yourselves out there”, participate in local workshops and challenges, and most importantly get exposed to novel points of view.

By Nico Lombardo