A weekend of workshops to celebrate the cultural diversity of Australian poets will be held in October 2000 at the NSW Writers Centre.

The workshops, entitled Valuing our World Poetic Heritage will bring together poets who write in any language to share their knowledge, their poetic heritage and identity, and their work with the wider Australian community through readings, translation and publication.

The workshops are being held by the World Congress of Poets, Sydney 2001 to help poets prepare for the Congress and to foster excellence in Australian poetry. There will be sessions on "Editing your poem" in various languages, and on "Translation into English". The poets will then read their work in their mother tongue (with the English translation available) in sessions open to the public .

The result will be the kind of anthology never before produced. Each language or cultural group will be asked in advance to produce a pocket history of poetry from their mother country or language (including English language- and Indigenous - Australian) to include in the anthology with one of the most famous poems of the past and the present, as well as the best poems by participants translated into English.

In the evening, at the end of the workshops, a candlelight vigil will be held to remember all poets who have been persecuted, imprisoned, exiled or executed for their work.