Almost a month without a single post – sorry. Been terribly busy with some other work… hopefully news of the exciting-imminent-upcoming-very-nearly-here May poetry slam will make up for it!
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!
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!
Despite what you might have heard, last week’s quiet poetry slam was not the last Traverse Poetry slam. The ACT Government grant that has supported this project will finish at the end of 2009, but slams will continue in 2010. The first slam for the year will be Thursday 25 February and then, from March, they’ll be back on the last Friday of each month.
So, we’ll be ending 2009 with an absolutely massive event at the National Museum of Australia: a water-themed poetry slam, to help launch the new exhibition, Water: H2O=Life.
Other than the theme, what’s so special about this event? We have an absolutely wonderful guest poet, from Sydney, called Sarah Mae. ACT poetry slam fans may remember her first set in Canberra back in 2007, when The Front slams were just getting started. Those who don’t know her work should be prepared for a jaw-dropping performance exploring identity, myths, fairy tales and everyday observation through spoken word, song and the rhythms of the subconscious.
Plus, we have the always delightful Cathy Petocz playing music, and huge prizes — $200 cash from Traverse Poetry and a $100 gift voucher from the Museum!
Poetry Splash!
12 December 7:30-10:30pm
Friends Lounge, National Museum of Australia
Lawson Crescent, Acton Peninsula
Free entry!
You must book a slot to perform: email poetry DOT slams AT gmail DOT com or phone 0403 885 873 – we’re very nearly at capacity for the night so if you want a shot at the prizes make sure you book now!
Another mega slam last night – thanks to everyone for coming out in the cold weather. We ended up with just under 20 poets performing in the slam, plus two big sets from the entertaining Randall Stephens.
Top three poets were:
CJ (with an amazing ‘party’ piece)
Jacinta (aided by a chorus of uncooperative Greek nonnas)
And now for… Judge Judy judging a poetry slam. No it’s not what you think it is (how cool/bizarre/intimidating would that be?) but, rather, a warning to producers of all spoken word events that you make sure you pay your poets!
Next slam is Friday 30 October so be prepared for some sort of Halloween (eve) silliness. Probably.
The workshop is happening with the generous support of Music For Everyone, on Sunday 20 September at Ainslie Arts Centre (not Gorman House) on Elouera Street in Braddon, 2-5pm. No experience or materials required!
If that wasn’t enough, you can also look forward to an internationally themed poetry slam next week, on Friday 25 September at The Front. This one is going to feature special guest poet Randall Stephens who I met earlier this year in Melbourne. He’s an highly entertaining poet with a marvellous beard to boot.
This slideshow gives you a really quick idea of fLight, a zine of my poetry wonderfully illustrated by Amina McConvell (with an amazing cover by Jenn Arthur). Amina copied the pages and pasted them up at the decomissioned Belconnen bus interchange, as part of the in2CHANGE festival.
‘Girls Own’ Poetry Slam
Ladies only performers – open audience!
Featuring music from Julia from the Deep Sea Sirens
29 May 2009 7:30-11:30pm
The Front Café and Gallery
Wattle St, Lyneham
A few weeks ago I had a request to publish the winners of the April slam, so here they are:
1. Seung Baek
2. Farida
3. Michael Klapdor
Stay tuned for some more interesting posts soon – I’ve got a bunch of cool things in my notes to let you know about.
Wow! What a weekend. We managed to fit over 100 into the main room of The Front and were treated to fantastic new work by poets both new to the night as well as old favourites. And Santo Cazzati did a very fine job of taking us through a kaleidoscope of aural worlds.
The next day, the always delightful Vanessa Berry led an excellent workshop on zine making, each of the participants creating a their own one page zine.
On the subject of zines (and there’ll be plenty of news about it to come) I wanted to let you know that Andrew Darragh (who designed the awesome zine fair poster), Gemma Nourse and myself are starting up a zine distro called Long Arm, which will be running out of Smiths Alternative Bookshop. More details available on the Facebook page.
Oh, and, by the way, my A Zine about Canberra is back in print with a lovely colour cover! I’m selling them for $3 (cheap!) and should be getting some stock to Sticky soon, if you’re down south. Also considering making a PDF available if people don’t want to pay for postage.
In other exciting news, Adam Hadley tells me a new poetry slam is starting up on the third Tuesday of the month at The Phoenix. It’s called BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! (I kid you not) and apprently there’ll be cheap beer for poets. Yay! First slam on 21 April. More details to come.
I also hear Hadley is in need of young poets (25 and under) to perform at the National Folk Festival as part of hiJinx, in exchange for a day ticket. If you fit the bill then yank on Mr Hadley’s ear quick smart.
www.traversepoetry.org
