www.traversepoetry.org

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

I’ve just done a long overdue update of the events page as well as sent out an e-newsletter (subscribe). I’ve been finding it quite hard to stay on top of promotion as it’s pretty much just me booking, organising and coordinating things. If there’s anyone out there who has experience in promoting events and a bit of time on their hands please get in touch – there’ll probably be a bit of money available to cover your time.

Ok, so the main upcoming event is the first slam at The Front for 2009, happening next week:

Poetry Slam
Friday 27 February
7.30pm – 11.30pm
The Front Café and Gallery, Wattle St, Lyneham

On the very next day, I’ll be joining some of Canberra’s finest spoken word performers doing a group piece specially written for Corinbank festival.

Spoken Word Showcase with Seung Baek, Fenella Edwards, Adam Hadley and Omar Musa
28 February 2009 – 4:45-5:00pm
Corin Forest Mountain Resort

Lots of things to look forward to!

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!

You can now view videos of the winners from the ACT Australian Poetry Slam heats performing their poems in exotic Canberra locations… watch and find out how each of them answers tricky questions such as ‘What will you do if you win?’

1. Adam Hadley*
2. Omar Musa
3. David Finnigan**/***

*Featuring best ever unplanned interruption EVER!
**Thanks for the name check!
***What’s with cranking up the bass when you’re talking about what happens when stuff goes wrong – it’s a damned conspiracy!

I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed that I won’t be going up to watch these fine lads duke it out with the other Australian Slam winners. I just didn’t get my act together in time, and now I’m swamped… speaking of which, check back very soon for exciting announcements for 2009!