www.traversepoetry.org

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.

That’s it for now, except I was just listening to an interview with a Melbourne poet called Pi O in which he mentions a workers magazine called 9 to 5. I’d be interested if anyone knows anything about this publication – please let me know!

Ok, first up, I was asked to help spread the word about a zine fair happening in the nearby town of Braidwood as part of the Two Fires Festival (27-29 March 2009). The festival organisers are calling for zinesters to register to sell and trade their work. There’s no fee and tables will be provided.

Register by emailing zinefair@twofirefestival.org or calling 040 1904 680.

Check out the nifty flyer here or on the Two Fires website.

Secondly there’s some very cool stuff happening in Belconnen later on in the year with the decommissioning of the bus interchange. On the final night (26 April) before it is knocked down all manner of artists and performers will be running wild. I’m hoping to get a possy of premium poets to perform poignant pieces on the night. Email me if you’re interested in being involved.

Best place to find out what’s happening is the in2CHANGE facebook group.

The final thing is I was recently catching up on IndieFeed Performance Poetry podcasts (thanks for the mention in show 505 Mongo!) and I have to mention Jack McCarthy’s poem Drunks which I encourage you all to listen to for all the reasons Mongo cites in his outro: this piece really does express what’s wonderful and important about performance poetry.

I’m going to be a bit unconventional and post about 2009 Traverse events out of chronological order – as you can see from the events page, there are a couple of activities planned for next year before the exciting Canberra Zine Fair. I’m doing this because I want to give people as much lead time as possible to get cracking on their zines.

Here are the details:

Canberra Zine Fair as part of SCRIBBLE: young writers, young readers festival
7 February 2009
Q2 Foyer
Gorman House Arts Centre
Ainslie Avenue, Braddon

Times are unconfirmed at the moment, but it’s most likely they’ll be like this year’s – i.e. doors open 9.30am and it wraps up in the early evening.

It’s entirely free to come a sell/trade your work (and we’re encouraging not just zinesters to be there – anyone who’s into self-publishing, DIY and etsy are welcome) but if you don’t have your own table the ACT Writers Centre are renting trestle tables at $10 per table (fits three people comfortably), payable on the day. Chairs will be free and plentiful.

Please send me a quick email if you’d like to book a spot!

There’s also a facebook event if you want to check out who’s going to be there (or at least claiming to be).