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.
Sorry about the late notice. I’ve been completely flat out trying to get my first ever zine ready for the fair this weekend. The night before the fair, this Friday, is a special poetry slam happening as part of the ACT Writers Centre’s SCRIBBLE: Young Writers, Young Readers festival.
There’s no cover charge for this slam so if you’ve got friends who you want to introduce to poetry slams, this is the night to drag them along!
We will have a smorgsbord of wonderful prizes, including copies of Block and First creative writing journals, Voiceworks magazines, novels from the ACT Writers Centre and a copy of your favourite poem printed on high-quality art stock paper by The Artworks… and that’s just to begin with!
Here’re the details for both of this weekend’s events:
Scribble Poetry Slam
Friday 6 February
7.30pm – 9.30pm
Bogong Theatre, Gorman House Arts Centre, Ainslie Ave, Braddon
Canberra Zine Fair
Saturday 7 February
10.00am – 5.00pm
QL2 Foyer, Gorman House Arts Centre, Ainslie Ave, Braddon
Traverse Poetry is kicking off 2009 with a huge poetry slam in Queanbeyan!
The first Traverse slam for 2009 will take place on the opening night of the Benedict House art:house festival – so, as well as the usual open mic and slam competition (with cash prizes!), there will also be a huge range of artwork to view and buy, including paintings, drawings, 3D artworks and photography.
Friday night’s Halloween slam was great fun (although a little on the quiet side – to be expected with Stonefest, Reclaim the Night and a bunch of other events on at the same time)… Nevertheless ’twas lovely to see all of the kids (and big kids) dressed up, getting into the spookiness of the day.
We boosted the scary factor inside The Front by (silently) projecting Nosferatu and Plan 9 from Outer Space behind the performers. I thought it might be too distracting for the audience but everyone seemed to enjoy it. My haunted house poem went down well, as did the other Halloween-themed entries. The winners were:
www.traversepoetry.org
