www.traversepoetry.org

Thanks to all of you who made it to yesterday’s science-themed slam. It was another great night and guest poet Randall Stephens did a fantastic job.

Here’s what the Traverse Poetry High Score Table looks like after last night (and, just to make things interesting, I’m doing the full top 10):

1. CJ
2. Benjamin Keaney
3. Anthony Hayes
4. Tasnim Hossain
5. Miranda Lello
6. Andrew Galan
7. Adam Hadley/Jacinta
8. Ryan Schipper
9. Wes
10. Big/Flying V

Remember: top 3 poets receive a Marvellous Magical Secret Surprise at the November event (26 November @ The Front). Next chance to raise your ranking: 24 September.

This month, with support from the Poets Union and the ACT Writers Centre, we’re celebrating National Science Week.

Get your set squares and chemistry kits ready – we want to hear your finest haiku on hydrogen, sestinas on sunspots and villanelles on ventricles!

BONUS poetical explosions from Melbourne’s Randall Stephens!

Traverse Poetry Slam: SCIENCE
27 August 7:30-11:00pm
The Front Gallery and Café
Wattle St, Lyneham

$3 / free for poets – sign up for a slot in the slam from 7.30pm.

Updated Traverse High Score Table…

1. CJ
2. Anthony Hayes
3. Tasnim Hossain

This month I’m giving you lots of advance notice about this month’s theme (winter) so you’ve got plenty of time to warm up your brain!

Traverse Poetry Slam: WINTER
25 June 7:30-11:00pm
The Front Gallery and Café
Wattle St, Lyneham

Winter’s here and rather than shivering at home we’re ditching our snuggies and oil heaters and heading to The Front for a blizzard of winter-themed poetry! Warm up the crowd with your best poetry about snow balls, ice skating and polar bears and win very cool prizes!

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

Current TRAVERSE HIGH SCORE TABLE:
1. CJ
2. Tasnim Hossain
3. Anthony Hayes

Oh, and while you’re planning your snowy masterpiece, you may like to have a listen to these podcasts from the Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! third-Tuesday-of-the-month slams (next one’s 15 June) at The Phoenix produced by Leon. Warning: they contain a great deal of aimless rambling and abundant colourful cursing. Good fun.

• Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! – 20 April 2010
• Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! – 19 January 2010

Quick post to remind you about the next Traverse slam: Friday 26 March at The Front. Following February’s well-attended slam we have the first lot of scores in the High School Table (top three were CJ, Hadley and Sean the Saw [possibly one of the guys who did music for this]). Your scores will grow with each slam you perform at so make sure you get along to each and every one if you want a shot at the BIG EXCITING MYSTERY SECRET EVENT in November.

Traverse Poetry Slam
Friday 26 March 7:30pm-11:00pm
The Front Gallery and Cafe Wattle Street, Lyneham
$3 (free entry for performers!)
Book a slot in the slam from 7.30pm

Meanwhile, if you’re free this Sunday, I encourage you to check out Canberra’s World Naked Bike Ride. The reason I bring it up here is the organisers were hoping to get some poets to perform work at points during the ride. I’m not sure if there are fixed places for people to perform or they want poets on the move – probably the best approach is to get in touch with one of the admins for the Facebook event. The ride is happening on World Poetry Day, so it’s well worth getting involved!

World Naked Bike Ride – Canberra 2010
Sunday 21 March 11:00am…
Meet at Kuttabul Place, Acton – next to the lake, near Northbourne Avenue.

Congratulations to the winners of the ACT heat of the Australian Poetry Slam 2009!

1. Adam Hadley
2. Will Small
3. 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