Mother Tongue Poetry

Role: Founder, CEO, Progamming and Event Coordinator, Brand Management

Founded in 2012, Mother Tongue Poetry is a Not For Profit arts organisation that amplifies and equips the voices of women and gender diverse people who align with womanhood. Fleassy was the founding lead artist of the organisation and was the primary producer and manager for the first decade. In the transition to being an incorporated not for profit Fleassy transitioned into a CEO role.

History:
2012 – 2020: Mother Tongue was a small community organisation run by Fleassy Malay and co-run by various other people.

2020 onwards: After a year of planning and strategising, Mother Tongue Poetry became an incorporated Not For Profit with a board of directors in 2021. Fleassy Malay transitioned into being the CEO of the organisaiton.

2012 – 2023: Mother Tongue Poetry ran in-person monthly spoken word events in Melbourne, and also collaborated with external orgs for showcase events. These collaborations included Melbourne Writers Festival, Rainbow Serpent Festival, Seven Sisters Festival, Melbourne Spoken Word Festival and more. A small Youtube channel was implemented with a short run of videos.

2020 – 2022: Mother Tongue Poetry transitioned to primarily online events in 2020 in accordance with COVID safe regulations.

2023 onward: From 2023 Mother Tongue Poetry transitioned to running their standard events every other month. To suplement this they began applying for grants to run project based complimentary programming. Some examples of this include: Women of Banyule and Beyond Gala 2023, Voices in the Street Public Art Activation and Workshop Series 2024, and The Rising Voices Fellowship and Public Workshop Series in 2026.

For more details about Mother Tongue Poetry and the board and volunteers see www.mothertonguepoetry.com