Saturday 15 February 2025

Poets Breakfast

Hosted by: Chinchilla Cancer Fund Event

Location: Chinchilla Museum, Villiers Street
Time: 7am - 9am

Enjoy a hearty breakfast while having a laugh with Australia's top performing bush poets Gary Fogarty & Ray Essery.

Introducing Our Poets

Gary Fogarty has succeeded in doing what most of us aspire to, turning his ‘passion’ into a full time pursuit. After years of hard work and dedication to performing Bush Poetry, Gary can now legitimately lay claim to be one of Australia’s most popular and busy Bush Poets.

In a very short stint in Bush Poetry Competitions, Gary won the Inaugural Australian Bush Poetry Championship and several other major competitions before moving into the professional sector of entertainment.

A regular performer at some of this country’s major Festivals for many years now, Gary has taken the next step and as a member of the Australian Performing Arts Team has taken his craft to an international audience, claiming a Silver and Two Bronze medals at the prestigious World Championships of Performing arts in the USA.

The life for a bush poet is never dull and Gary balances his time between guest performances at well known Festivals such as Gympie, Tamworth, Mud Bulls and Music, and  Booyup Brook , conducting writing and performing workshops for both school children and adults, corporate entertainment, voice-over work, roving announcing at Festival such as Chinchilla Melon Festival, Tara Festival of Culture, Australian Camp Oven Festival, and Gayndah Orange Festival, compeering a wide variety of events,  as well as dabbling in song writing and composing Customised Poems for a growing client base.

While the entertainment industry is notorious for being fickle and no performer can take their future in the industry for granted, it would appear that with a long list of achievement and awards behind him, a burning desire to continue searching for ways to improve and that lifelong passion for his craft, that Gay Fogarty will be a part of the entertainment scene in this country for a long time yet.

Ray Essery - Performing Bush Poet

Ray Essery is without doubt one of the most highly regarded performing Bush Poets in Australia today.

After arriving on the entertainment scene in the early 90’s Ray has worked hard at enhancing his natural abilities as a story teller by developing an ‘on stage’ persona that represents his life’s journey. This ‘North Coast’ poet can leave his audiences in stiches with hilarious tales that reflect his years as a dairy farmer, Navy man and Sydney pub manager. Likewise he can dig deep into the kitbag of his family memories to deliver heartfelt recollections of his early life, taking his audiences on a nostalgic journey back to a time when life on the North Coast was just a little less complicated.

Ray Essery is a bit like………… well…… like Ray Essery, he is unique, a genuine original, it is hard to imagine anyone else delivering Ray’s original poems with anywhere near the same impact. That same keen sense of history that is reflected in his own writing comes to the fore again when his respectful interpretations champion the works of some early North Coast poets.

Ray’s early performing career was littered with winning performances in major competitions and his recorded works, both individual and as a member of the highly successful ‘Naked Poets’, have been rewarded with multiple Aust Bush Laureate Awards.

This mischievous, loveable larrikin is equally at home performing at any of Australia’s major Festivals as he is entertaining at a corporate event. Ray Essery is a storyteller, a historian, a romantic, a comic and above all else, an entertainer.