Patricia Sykes is a poet, editor and improvisor. She has read her work on radio, in concert, at festivals, bookshops, pubs, libraries and various other venues. Her prizes include the John Shaw Neilson and Tom Collins Awards and a highly commended in the Jospehine Ulrick Poetry Prize. Her first collection, Wire Dancing (Spinifex Press, 1999) is based on a circus theme and arose out of her experiences as a performer with the Women’s Circus. It was commended in both the Anne Elder and Mary Gilmore Awards for 2000. Her second collection, Modewarre – home ground, is based on the themes of identity, loss and belonging and is envisioned through the modewarre, the musk duck in the Wathaurong language and a place name in country Victoria. She has received New Work Grants from the Australia Council and Arts Victoria and has recently been commissioned by Liza Lim to write a poetic text for her composition, Mother Tongue, which premiered at the Festival d’Automne, Paris, in November 2005 and around Australia for the 25th anniversary of Elision in 2006. 

In 2006 she was a recipient of an Asialink Grant to Malaysia. She has recently completed a new libretto, The Navigator, which premiered at the Brisbane Arts Festival in 2008, and toured to the Melbourne International Festival of Arts at the Playhouse in 2008 also.

Wire Dancing (1999) commended in the FAW Anne Elder and the Mary Gilmore awards for 2000.
In 1996 river salvages won the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award and death, passionfruit and roses was a finalist in the 1995 AUNTECH Poetry Prize.