www.traversepoetry.org

Yes, these updates have been few and far between. I apologise. I’m moving to a nine-day fortnight this week so hopefully there’ll be some more time to devote to this blog soon.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago we had another good slam, with a whole bunch of new faces. In fact, our second place winner had never performed before…

1. CJ (on why he’s too boring to be a poet!)
2. James Douglass
3. Anthony

A couple of days later Daniel Ferri, David Finnigan and I ran an enjoyable workshop at C Block. About half the people who signed up turned up but, in fact, we only just managed that number in the time we had, so all was well. Hopefully we’ll see some of these wonderfully talented people at forthcoming slams!

Now, a couple of links readers might find interesting:

• Poetica – Poets of Papua New Guinea: part one and two (I found the first part more interesting than the second, but both are good).
• Visible Tweets: ‘poetry’

Sorry again about the long delay between updates. We had a massive slam last month, featuring great sets from guest poets Rhys Rodgers and Tobias Manderson-Galvin – in fact I think it might have been the largest turnout since we started running slams at The Front. On that note, this month’s slam will celebrate our third birthday!

Traverse Birthday Poetry Slam
Featuring Little Sister
26 June 2009 7:30-11:30pm
The Front Café and Gallery
Wattle St, Lyneham

Look out for some more info about this special slam shortly.

Meanwhile, I’ve been very busy organising a free workshop for people under 30, that will explore the techniques and skills that professional performance poets use and how you can use them to improve your own practice. The tutor is Daniel Ferri (yes the very same Daniel Ferri that appears in the film SlamNation!). I worked with Daniel on a similar workshop last year which was extremely well received by all participants.

Performance poetry workshop with Daniel Ferri and David Finnigan
Free for people under 30 – only limited places: book now!
Contact ACT Writers Centre to book: (02) 6262 9191
2 August 2009 10.00am-3.00pm
C Block Theatre @ Gorman House Arts Centre
Ainslie Avenue, Braddon

This workshop will be suitable for all levels of experience so hurry up and book – it’s already half full and it’s less than three weeks away!

Oh, one other thing, Tom posted a review of what looks like an excellent exhibition of paintings by Joabie Lovett over at the Belconnen Community Centre: Symbols of the Dreaming from the Chaos Void. It finishes this Friday so get there quick!

I figured it was about time I posted this most wonderful of poems by Anis Mojgani.

I was introduced to Shake the Dust by Daniel Ferri at his performance workshop last year. I don’t have much else that I can say about this piece other than it was a perspective-shifting experience. So I’m going to shut up now so you can watch the video.

Oh and you might like to know, there will be another free (for people under 30) performance workshop, run by Daniel Ferri, happening during National Youth Week, on 29 March 2009. More info here.

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who came along to the slam last Friday at Benedict House in Queanbeyan. Despite some weather issues (it started raining so we moved inside and then it stopped raining for the rest of the night) and problems with my amp (crazy freaky shaky clicky sound) it was a wonderful night. And such an amazing venue!

First prize went, quite appropriately, to Queanbeyan boy Omar Musa who did a touching homecoming poem. Seung came second and Hadley, third.

The aforementioned poets, myself and Daniel Ferri had a good meeting on Sunday planning the group piece for Corinbank Festival. The five us (including Fenella Edwards) will each be performing a three minute piece starting and ending with the same line – ‘This is a warning to everyone’ – and including as many of four other lines as will fit easily, and then ending with the five us repeating the five lines together. It should be something splendid to see. Oh, and we also watched a bunch of group performances from US slams, marvelled at the poets’ beat-boxing skills (watch Running a Race for a good example) and learnt from Cicero the perfect way to gesture.

And I have to say a extra special thank you to Julia, who serenaded us with so much beautiful music on Friday night.

Something a little more substantial this time. One of the friends I made last year, Daniel Ferri, is a teacher and poet originally from Chicago, now living in Canberra. He’s helping me out with a few of the Traverse Poetry events this year, most immediately as the director/advisor of a performance taking place at the Corinbank festival, on 28 February. This will be collaborative poetry performed by Omar Musa (winner of the Australian Poetry Slam ’08), Seung Baek (winner of the 2008 Night Words poetry contest), Adam Hadley (winner of the 2009 Woodford Folk Festival poetry slam), MC Fenella (all-round hip-hop all star) and yours truly, based on the themes of play, fire and soil… more info on that later.

I wanted to mention Daniel because of a very cool poetry competition he created in 1995, called Head to Head Haiku (and the related form, Toe to Toe Tanka). From Daniel’s description, it’s a very intense competition in which the judges have about 30 seconds to make a decision on which of two poets go through into the next round. He said one of the most remarkable features of the contest was the silence and focus the develops in an audience as the event progresses.

We’re planning to run a Head to Head Haiku competition later on in the year so we’ll see if we can get the same level of focus here in Canberra.

Meanwhile, this was the only video I could find, which is a battle (between Jonica and Tazuo Yamaguchi) rather than the sort of competition I described, but it still gives you a good idea of the style. Check it out and let me know if you’d like to have a try at it!