www.traversepoetry.org
ACT heat wrap up
Congratulations to the winners of the ACT heat of the Australian Poetry Slam 2009!
- Adam Hadley
- Will Small
- CJ Huet
As in previous years, the range was quite a bit different from the monthly gigs at The Front, with a much stronger focus on hip hop. We also had some much younger poets (including one 11-year-old rapping about illegal street racing… hmm…) and a few more ‘random’ (for want of a better word) performers, in particular a guy reading some gorgeous haiku off an iPhone.
There were too few women performing again. I’m hoping next year’s slams (and perhaps another all-women night sometime in the year) will encourage some more ladies to get behind the mic – there’s so much talent in our town!
Last year’s overall winner, Omar Musa, also did a smashing performance of the piece he did with Hadley, Seung, Fenella and I at Corinbank earlier this year.
So, this month we have a more low-key event, not really a slam at all (let’s call it a ‘sham slam’ shall we?) and more of an open mic:
Traverse Poetry Night
Friday 27 November
7.30pm-10.30pm
The Front Gallery and Cafe
Wattle Street, Lyneham
Free entry for everyone!
And, before I go, I need to plug the launch of issue 9 of Block journal, this week at Smiths:
Block 9 launch
Thursday 19 November
6.00pm-7.00pm
Smiths Alternative Bookshop
76 Aligna Street, Canberra City
Malcolm Miller
November 28th, 2009 at 11:15 am #
Julian, I really enjoyed our small ‘slam’ on Friday 27! There may not have been many of the regular poets there, but there were some interesting contributions. Just because there was no competition didn’t matter to me. What I enjoyed most was the spontenaiety that led to people coming forward and saying poems they hadn’t intended to in advance. I managed to fit in two myself – out of the only three poems I know by heart!
When’s the next one? Is there a long break now?
jools
November 29th, 2009 at 6:09 pm #
Thanks Malcolm. It was an interesting night, wasn’t it? I really enjoyed Nikolai’s contributions. There’s this one on 12 December, then the next one is February.