www.traversepoetry.org

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

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’

Before I start spruking this month’s slam-ganza (stay tuned) I thought I’d quickly point you to Tom’s review of last month’s slam which managed to create the most controversy (the event, not the review) I’ve seen at a Canberra slam since the ‘freedom of speech’ fight back in ‘o7…

May is shaping up to be a very exciting month for Traverse Poetry!

First up:

Getting Published: Secrets from the Writers & Editors!
Free Q&A panel featuring: Paul Magee, Jack Heath, Rachel Longhurst, Julia Winterflood, George Poulakis and Emily Stewart
16 May 2009 2:00-3:30pm
The Hub @ Civic Library
London Circuit, Civic

Then, at the end of the month:

‘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.

I’ve just sent out the first issue of my ACT slam e-news for 2009 with a brief run down of the first few months’ events.

If you’d like to receive a copy of the e-newsletter just send a quick email to poetry.slams@gmail.com

Meanwhile, here is the awesome poster I mention in the newsletter, produced by Andrew Darragh (She Loves Me zine):

The full-size image is available, as is an A4 PDF if you’d like to print and distribute (feel free!).

For those of you who use the ‘book of faces’ there’s a group devoted to Canberra poetry slams set up by my lovely housemate. Another easy way to keep track of the slams as they come up.

Speaking of which… don’t forget about the Benedict House poetry slam in Queanbeyan (more info in this post).

It’s the busiest time of the year for Canberra slams – aside from the regular monthly gig at The Front, we have two ACT heats for Australian Poetry Slam – Friday 7 November and Friday 14 November.

Don’t forget you need to register a slot in order to perform. It’s free and very painless – just email events@nla.gov.au or phone (02) 6262 1271.

Both heats are happening at the National Library of Australia, with some great musos as supports:

• Friday 7 November @ 7.00pm – The Cashews
• Friday 14 November @ 7.00pm – Munro Melano (from Casual Projects)

Check out the neato flyer (click to get the full-size version):

Hello and welcome to the online home for Traverse Poetry.

Traverse Poetry is a new Canberra project funded by artsACT due to take place in 2009. This blog will contain updates and information about the project as well as details of spoken word events in the ACT, plus miscellaneous musings on writing and poetry.

Planning has already begun on the Traverse Project – so keep your eye on this blog or, better still, subscribe to this blog by RSS and sign up to the ACT Poetry Slam e-Newsletter.