Human Rights Poetry Slam
28 May 7:30-11:00pm
The Front Gallery and Café
Wattle St, Lyneham

This month Traverse Poetry has joined with the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival to run a special human rights-themed poetry slam. Come along and perform poems that make human rights accessible, relevant and significant – and win great prizes! Then end the evening dancing to a special set from DJ Boogie Smash!

$3 (free for poets) – sign up for a slot from 7.30pm

See you there!

Plus… we now have 3 new poets in the lead on the TRAVERSE POETRY HIGH SCORE TABLE!

1. John Reid
2. James Douglas
3. Ben Keaney

Perform your best poem about ‘hunger’ for the chance to win awesome prizes and a spot on the coveted poetry slam HIGH SCORE TABLE!

Plus… special guest poet David Finnigan performs Sun Drugs!

Traverse Poetry Slam
Friday 30 April 7:30-10:30pm
The Front Gallery and Cafe Wattle Street, Lyneham
$3 (free entry for performers!)
Book a slot in the slam from 7.30pm

Why ‘hunger’ you ask? It’s all about trying to get Canberra’s young writers into print – hunger is also the theme of the next issue of Voiceworks, the fantastic young writers’ magazine published by Express Media. By giving you the same topic to write about I’m hoping that some of our young writers will go on to submit their work to Voiceworks (submissions close 27 June 2010, only for under 25 – sorry!).

What about those of us over 25 you ask? Well, we still get to write stuff about hunger for the poetry slam, which is a rather interesting theme and should make for a rather interesting night!

While we’re on the subject of Express Media, the Melbourne organisation has helped fund what looks to be an excellent new publication from Blemish Books, the organisation started by Greg (who was one of the group involved in the Write in Your Face poetry project in 2008). The book is called Caught in the Breeze and it’s 10 essays on the role of flags in contemporary Australia.

Here’s the launch info:

Caught in the Breeze launch
Thursday 29 April 6:00pm
Smiths Alternative Bookshop
76 Alinga Street, Civic

Let me know what works for you too.

Breathing

Start by taking lots of deep breaths, making sure you’re breathing from your diaphragm and not raising and lowering your shoulders. Rest a hand on your abdomen to help you focus on this. Now start make a hissing ‘s’ sound as you exhale until your lungs are empty.

Open your mouth

Put the heels of your hands under your cheek bones. Push in and move your hands downwards, letting your jaw fall open. Repeat.

Vocal exercises

With your mouth closed, produce a low humming sound, gradually building up to a loud ‘mah’ sound as you open your mouth (this one is good to do in the shower if you want to work it into a daily routine).

Put your lips together loosely and blow a steady stream of air to create a raspberry sound (a lip trill). Now try doing this as you make a ‘h’ and then ‘b’ sound. Gently move up and down the scales using both sounds, one at a time.

Diction: tongue twisters

Repeat the following phrases in a row: unique New York; round and down; red rubber baby buggy bumpers; eee-yaaa; red leather, yellow leather.

Hold a pencil or pen between your front top and bottom teeth and try some of the following tongue twisters. Also try to say lots of words with ‘s’, ‘v’, ‘f’ and ‘th’ sounds.

Drink a glass of warm water (actually, make sure you drink lots of water at all times, to keep your mouth and throat nicely lubricated) and say the following tongue twisters. Go nice and slow and try to enunciate each and every syllable.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
a peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked
if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Sally sells seashells by the seashore,
the shells Sally sells are surely from the sea.

I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.

The sixth sick Sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick

Betty Botter bought some butter.
‘But,’ she said, ‘the butter’s bitter,
if I put it in my batter
it will make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter
that would make my batter better.’

Final words

According to Jeff Davis’s vocal teacher, you should try not to cough or shout and to only speak in low tones before noon. This all sounds like a good idea, if only to ease pounding headaches created by attempts to write Jack Kerouac style.

These exercises were adapted from the following pages:

• Warm up your voice before class to improve the way you sound
• Wikipedia: Vocal warm up
• World Voice Day: Voice Warmup