Exclusive from Randall Stephens

It’s taken me a while to get my hands on this footage, but as a lead up to my Slamalamadingdong feature next week, and the release of my album ‘Product’ soon, I’m very excited to be presenting high-quality video of what I think are pretty attuned performances.

Alex Scott, my good friend and award-winning filmmaker has helped me polish these up adding some titles and optimizing the audio and video, without losing the live/raw flavour of being in the audience. The audio from this performance of ‘Beholden the Giant’ is actually what we ended up using on the album.

Words by Helen Lucas

The Courthouse Reading in the historic courthouse in Eltham has been running now for ten years. Funded by the Shire of Nillumbik, it has become an established reading over its time and has a dedicated group of mainly locals who attend it regularly, but also intrepid devotees who use public transport to get there.

Regular contributor Amanda Anastasi featuring at the Eltham Courthouse. (Photo by Thomas Kent)

In 2011, I had an idea about putting poetry on postcards as this fitted with the council arts strategy and the Ekphrasis Poetry Competition – a postcard project that combines artworks from the council’s collection with a poetic response was created, funded by the Courthouse door and further funds from council. A series of twelve postcards, artwork on one side, poem on the other are given out for free and the three best are chosen and given money!

The reading has one feature poet who performs two sets, and an open section. A theme is suggested, but by no means mandatory, but I have found that it inspires people who may not be poets, but who love poetry, to contribute. I often ask the feature poet for a theme that fits with their work and this gives an overall feeling for the night, with readers in the open section focussing their work.

The Courthouse Reading is a convivial reading, with a $5 entry fee which includes the poetry, of course, and refreshments, and a ticket in the door prize. The courthouse was built in 1862 and offers wonderful acoustics. A novelty of the reading being held in such a building is that the poets stand in the dock to read.

The next Courthouse Readings is on May 16 from 8pm featuring Steve Smart and the optional open mic theme is ‘Laughter.’ The Eltham Courthouse is at 728 Main Road, Eltham and can be accessed by catching a train and then a bus.

We thought we would highlight to you all some gigs listed in our ‘Upcoming events’ page that you certainly want to try and get to, including a gig hosted by this very website!

SLAMALAMADINGDONG: The Nerd Slam! Featuring Bron Batten and Randall Stephens
Thursday, May 16 @ 7.30pm / The Bella Union, Trades Hall, cnr of Victoria and Lygon Street (enter via Lygon Street) / $15-12 (ticketed) / Open slam (see event)

MelbourneSpokenWord.com presents spoken word at Conduit Arts featuring Benjamin Solah, Amanda Anastasi, Steve Smart, Kerry Loughrey, Randall Stephens and Santo Cazzati
Saturday, May 18 @ 8pm / Conduit Arts, 83 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy / $5

Dan Poets featuring MelbourneSpokenWord.com editor, Benjamin Solah
Saturday, May 25 @ 2pm / The Dan O’Connell Hotel, 225 Canning Street, Carlton / Free / Open Mic

One night stanza with Anis Mojgani, Ken Arkind, Carrie Rudzinski, Randall Stephens and Steve Smart, Michelle Dabrowski, Grace Vanilau and Ajak Kwai
Sunday, May 26 @ 7pm / The Performance Space, Footscray Community Arts Centre, 45 Moreland Street, Footscray / $15 (ticketed)

Port Phillip Gilgamesh Readings featuring Ken Arkind and Carrie Rudzinski
Monday, May 27 @ 7pm / Claypots Evening Star, Sth. Melbourne Market, Corner Cecil & York Streets, South Melbourne / Free / Open Mic

Williamstown Literary Festival: Three Poets’ Journeys featuring Matt Hetherington, Maxine Beneba Clarke and Amanda Anastasi
Saturday, June 1 @ 5pm / Williamstown Library, 104 Ferguson St, Williamstown / $10-7 (ticketed)

Passionate Tongues featuring Cece Ojany
Monday, June 3 @ 8.30pm / Brunswick Hotel, 140 Sydney Road, Brunswick / Free + Raffle / Open Mic

Keep Left featuring Maxine Beneba Clarke
Saturday, June 22 @ 8pm / Under the Hammer Arts Hub, 158 Sydney Road, Coburg / $5 / Open Mic

We will also be hosting a stall as part of Page Parlour during the Emerging Writers’ Festival, which will feature publications and CDs from poets and spoken word artists from around Melbourne, as well as special leaflet with events that are happening after the festival. If your gig is happening in June, and want to make sure your event is included, make sure you email us at melbournspokenword@gmail.com.

I was born for the journey.
Want me to tell you who I am?
Am I
Who I am?

I have read Rats Live On No Evil Star three times now: the first time as a draft, the second after the Passionate Tongues book launch and now again as I attempt to review it. Each time I digested it cover to cover in one sitting! This has much to do with Paul South’s accessible, conversational style. This and the easeful honesty that is evident from the unassuming opening lines of AM radio. The words enter quietly and humbly in lower case letters:

well
i’ve had my day out
walked a bit
seen some things…

This book is divided in three sections: Short Trips, Bridge and Rats Live On No Evil Star. In Short Trips, Paul gives us anecdotes about putting a dead crow in someone’s front garden, eating a chocolate sundae, a guy chroming on the train and a bargain store misunderstanding – among other things – on suburban walks and train journeys. These acts of simple observance are full of small moments of epiphany that surprise, delight and occasionally take you off guard! The purity and simplicity of the voice has a way of injecting a kind of magic in the ordinary, and this really is the mark of a good poet. The most memorable moments in the first section for me are Hurtsbridge Train, Bat, Amber and I Am Laughing With You. I particularly enjoyed the lines:

Listen
Until you are deaf

Ask why
Until you fall asleep

And in Get Used It:

This is our life and this is how we share it; eyes that meet only in sly passing, none of us where we want to be.

Some of the poems, in their unveiled honesty can catch the reader off guard in confronting ways, like Toilet Phobia and In My Cage. Then there are those poems that are genuinely light and funny like Things To Do In Moreland, I See The Light and (in the last section) Right To The Personals and The Things I Live With.

In Dirge Of Myself there is a hint of self-deprecation, as he takes a dig at his (and hence our) illusions about himself. In Garbage Ideology, he also sends up our smallness in the scheme of things and that the things we do are very much a mere drop in the ocean! For the most part, South is pointing the finger at himself. This collection is very much a direct look in the mirror – on a personal level and, through South’s gentle search for truth, all of us collectively.

The second section Bridge contains one poem called – you guessed it- Bridge! This is an introspective, intimate poem in three parts detailing South’s domestic daily routine. There is a sense of putting one foot in front of the other, of building a bridge to a place of wellness and stability. Above all, it is vulnerable and unpretentious.

In the final section Rats Live On No Evil Star, there moments of both defiance (I Prefer The Rats) and humility. Striking humility: the kind that makes the reader, in turn, humbled before it.

Paul covers the heavy subjects of the thought of suicide and death, and with refreshing ease and acceptance. In addition, there are some truly beautiful ruminations in Utopia, The Rain and Graveside, where the reader gets a glimpse of the poet dreaming. Being a Kafka enthusiast, I particularly enjoyed Metamorphosis. Paul’s Metamorphosis is very much a statement about our human conditioned behaviours and need to assimilate.

In What’s In A Name, South underlines not human twice in a poem which is a clear rejection of the human compulsion to label things. There is also this idea of animals being on “a higher level” than human pettiness, which I rather like. In Fixed, there is the implication that everything that exists is in an experiment, narrowing the distinction between humans and rats. This narrowing continues in the title poem Rats Live On No Evil Star, where rats are likened to “visitations” and “angels”. Drums is another unique poetic experience, where the ‘miraculous’ beating heart of a rat is juxtaposed with the “distant steel sounds” of Coode Island – natural versus man-made machinery.

So now I can’t think of anything more to do than to share some of my favourite lines:

Industry cries out like beached whales

At sunset the crickets would ring like so many unanswered phones

Oh and this one hit home for me…not due to being clever metaphorically as the previous lines, but by just having struck me in its plain, painful truth (in reference to finding three rats sleeping on a lost twenty dollar bill!)

It is the fading of this magic
That is hard to accept.

Before I continue to go on and quote the entire book, just go to your local bookshop and buy Rats Live On No Evil Star! It is gentle yet confronting. It is refreshing. It is something quite special.

Paul South’s poetry collection Rats Live On No Evil Star is available at Brunswick Bound on Sydney Rd, Collected Works, Polyester Books, Sticky Institute and Amazon.com or from Paul in person if you see him at any events around Melbourne.

Amanda Anastasi is a poet whose work ranges from the introspective to the socio-political. Her work has been published in magazines and anthologies both locally and overseas, including Cordite, FourW, Page Seventeen and Short & Twisted. She was the 2010 and 2011 winner of the Williamstown Literary Festival’s Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize, a prize which she judged in 2012 and 2013. She also won the C.J. Dennis Poetry Award as part of the Laura Literary Awards in SA in 2011. Amanda’s first poetry collection 2012 and other poems, was named in Ali Alizadeh’s Top Ten Poetic Works of 2012 in Overland Literary Journal. This year she performs at the Melbourne Fringe Festival in the Kollaborayshun show, the Newport Folk Festival and is back at the Williamstown Literary Festival. Amanda has also co-written Loop City with Steve Smart and composer Yvette Audain, produced by MSO violinist Sarah Curro and premiering this July.

Words by Randall Stephens: MPU President, 2013

The Melbourne Poets Union. We’ve been on strike for thirty five years. According to the legendary Sydney bard Tug Dumbly. We can’t afford Tug Dumbly. In spite of that we do monthly poetry readings anyway. Except December and January. Then we’re for-real on strike, I guess. Tug Dumbly didn’t answer my email. He must have been on strike too.

Anyway, Benjamin Solah asked us to tell you about our regular readings, which is good because there’s one on tomorrow night (or tonight, depending on when you’re reading this. Or it was last night if today is now Thursday, and you missed it. It was good too. No seriously, we had Amy Bodossian. More about that below) …can I start this over? No? Okay.

Well yes, the Melbourne Poets Union is a grass roots organisation that began life in 1977, an association currently under the auspices of Australian Poetry and the Victorian Writers Centre. So I have to be nice to them now. I also have to run these damn monthly readings.

If you’ve heard of us at all, the MPU has a reputation of being a little stodgy and conservative, and in 2013 we’re determined to help change that attitude by broadening our involvement in the local poetry community (including sponsoring this very site), and our events will be especially reflective of that, featuring a good mix of high profile and heretofore unknown poets and spoken word artists.

We’re committed to addressing the gender imbalance and under-representation of women in poetry (ooo shh everyone, Randall’s being serious now), as well as featuring more cultural diversity than has been typical in the past. Annually we help organise a multi-lingual poetry reading in collaboration with the Immigration Museum. Oh-oh and yeah, I also want to get more interstaters in too. You’ll be seeing a lot of this come to pass in the next few months.

A staple of our events is allowing a section for open stage readers, to encourage our members (and other attendees so inclined) to try speaking their poems aloud in a safe and supportive environment. There’s a great spectrum of styles and topics that emerge from poets each month.

Our venues tend to change from month-to-month, we try and keep a toe-hold in our HQ at The Wheeler Centre, but we also like to get out and spread-the-love around other spots around the City of Melbourne. It’s always on the last week of the month, typically the Wednesday or Thursday. Best to keep your eye on the MSW.com or our Facebook page.

This month, (this Wednesday April 24th) our feature is amazing Amy Bodossian, multi award winning, eccentric, mercurial, vulnerable and vividly human. Supporting Amy is Di Cousens, whose witty, graceful and delightful poems have filled two chapbooks. Please come here what these two have to say…

Words by Maeve McNelis

The Hare Hole WordSLAM?! is a little bit different. Not just open to poets, we encourage all writers to get up and show us what they’ve got.

It’s a competition.

Six writers perform in three rounds, competing for top place and a chance to enter the GrandSLAM. In the first round writers perform for up to 3 minutes, in round two they have up to 4 minutes. After two rounds the judges confer and choose the top two performers who go on to a final battle of up to six minutes each. First prize is a cut of the door plus entry into the GrandSLAM where there will be GRAND PRIZES (yet to be announced)

It’s queer.

Performances are often intimate and bold. Writers lay open their hearts with stories of love, life, the joy of bicycling, being trans, bringing up kids, sex, internalised homophobia, books they read as a kid, growing up in japan, abortions, racism, the wonders of dating librarians, & cannibalism.

You won’t believe it ‘til you see it.

The WordSLAM?! is on the second Thursday of the months with a GrandSLAM planned for October, at Hares and Hyena’s, 63 Johnston Street, Fitzroy. Tickets on the door, $10 full / $8 concession. Doors at 7:30 for an 8pm start. Come down and check it out, or contact Maeve at maevemcnelis@gmail.com to perform.

Dates are:
May 9th
June 13th
July 11th
August 8th
September 12th
GRANDSLAM PLANNED FOR OCTOBER

Words by Steve Smart

Photo by Michael Reynolds

Dan Poets has been running every Saturday afternoon since the beginning of time! Well, ok that’s not entirely true, but it has been running for many years. Since January 1st, 1994 to be exact. Some of you weren’t even born then. I was still in high school with no idea of any kind of poetry scene in Melbourne. Little did I know…

So there’s Grant McCracken sitting in the public bar of Carlton’s Dan O’Connell Hotel on a summer Saturday afternoon chatting with legendary Melbourne publican Kevin Webb. Hmm, nothing much going on in here eh Kevin? Should have a poetry reading. And so it began.

Now Grant ran it for about a year until he went off on the Oz poets tour of Texas and other far-flung places. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe Kevin ran the poetry for the next year until Ted Lord took it over. Now Lord Ted ran it for 16,000 years with the able assistance of Amanda Britton, Michelle Lehane, Justin Godden and Cam Black, until Cam took it over officially at the time of Ted’s passing in 2007. Then Cam ran it until he decided that poets smell funny, at which time he elected a group to take it over. That raggle-taggle bunch consisted of Anne Bowman, Fiona Stuart, Libby Charlton, Norman Jensen and myself.

Currently the organising group is Anne, Libby, Norman and Uncle Smarty.

So what is it, this Dan Poets? The format is pretty simple – open mic / feature poet’s 1st set / break / open mic / 2nd feature set / end of open mic / drinks / drinks. Lately we’ve been playing a little fast and loose with the format but that’s the basic gist. With the kind assistance of the pub we are able to pay the featured poets, who are also encouraged to sell there wares in order to keep them in the style to which they have (*choke*) become accustomed.

The gig is 2-5pm every Saturday, featuring an eclectic range of poets and sometimes singers, musos and people we can’t quite define but we love nonetheless. We try hard to book quality features that cover as much of the wide spectrum of poetry as possible, and often have interstate and overseas artists.

What else can I tell you? Come down and check it out for yourself, we’re a welcoming bunch. And the Guinness has won awards. No shit, it’s that good.

The Dan Poets happens every Saturday, at the Dan O’Connell Hotel, 225 Canning Street, Carlton from 2pm, basically all year round, unless the Dan is closed on public holidays (but sometimes even then). The next features are Loran Steinberg and Olly Armstrong (April 20), Matt Hetherington (April 27) and Fleassy Malay (May 4). Melbourne Spoken Word regularly lists the upcoming features at the Dan. Keep checking the site for regular updates.

Words by Fleassy Malay

Mother Tongue aims to be more than just a spoken word night (as they all do I guess). It is, as far as I know, Melbourne’s only Women’s Spoken Word night. The set up is simple, 2 feature acts, 10 open mic slots, chai, cake and cushions. Only Women perform but men are more than welcome (and encouraged) to come and watch.

Our catchphrase, if it’s cool to call it that, is “Passionate, Powerful, Vulnerable and Honest” and this really does seem to set the theme of the night, it never fails to bring laughter, tears and a post-show sense of …”wow did that really happen?”

The original idea was to create a space with two intentions; 1. To provide a platform for women to inspire and be inspired, be them first time writers or seasoned performers and 2. To PAY. After years of performing internationally and feeling guilty even asking for expenses, the intention for Mother Tongue was to not only pay our Feature Acts for their passion and gifts but to also remind them that this is a symbol of their worth, and that they are doing important and powerful work… and to keep doing it! It’s a real community event and the warmth and sense of support from it is often felt days/weeks after.

The talent always inspires me and the courage of the women that get up and share their deepest truths in a creative way is amazing. It’s almost like a women’s group and a performance platform joined… There have been whispered plans of a Brother Tongue being set up and I really really hope I get to see that happen. The concept of the “tongues” is not to segregate but to create a space for our vulnerability to be witnessed and supported. The next one is 19th of April and I am super excited for it, so… see you down there!

Information and updates about Mother Tongue can be found at their Facebook Page. And the next Mother Tongue, featuring Michelle Dabrowski and Nicole Duchesne, is this Friday, the 19th of April from 7.30pm at Melbourne Physical and Natural Studio, 1/393 Smith Street, Fitzroy.

Words by Sheridan Mills

The House of Bricks gallery and studio space is a warehouse space in the heart of Collingwood (just around the corner from The Tote Hotel), which hosts a range of arts and cultural events – supporting both local and international artists.

Once a month we hold a spoken word event (typically on the last day of the month depending on our events calendar), which has been gaining momentum over the past year.

Our premise is to support local writers and to offer a platform for both emerging (we welcome first-timers) and established writers and spoken word artists to come together and share their work with a different audience.

We have from 50-100 people attend our events and our audience is not only made up of writers, but also people from all aspects of the arts and the general public.

The event runs a callout once a month for people to put their name down for a ‘feature’ time-slot on the night (which is a 10 minute time-slot) and we have up to 4 features per event.

We also have up to 10 ‘open-mic’ time-slots of up to 3 minutes each.

Santo Cazzati ‘PJ’s’ the event (poetry jockey) who has been involved in the local/interstate writing and spoken word scene for over 10 years and is one of the most colourful, energetic, and accommodating PJ’s around (he is, in fact, the ONLY PJ around, as he invented the concept at House of Bricks!).

We also hand out – free – spoken word zines filled some of the most amazing words for you to enjoy and take away with you (with entries from readers at previous events).

There is a P.A. and mic, cheap drinks (gold coin mostly), some cushions for sore bums, and lots of friendly faces.

Please come along and enjoy some of the most diverse and wonderful spoken word artists around (again both established and grass roots).

The gallery is located at 40 Budd street (on the corner of Budd and Keele streets):

Bring your friends and family, invite everyone you like, this is an open event.

The next House of Bricks is happening on Friday, May 3 at 7pm at House of Bricks gallery, 40 Budd Street Collingwood. Check out the Facebook event to help spread the word and check the ‘upcoming events’ page for any more upcoming House of Bricks events.

Keep Left, a great poetry gig that celebrated left-wing poetry in Melbourne, run by Paulie ran monthly for most of the second half of 2012. I was lucky enough to be the first ever feature. It was an ambitious gig with a real identity and had promise, but sadly ceased to be toward the end of last year. I’ve decided to revive the gig starting in June, with the help of other progressive poets. The home of Keep Left will now be at the Activist Arts Hub, Under the Hammer, a space for left-wing artists. The first gig will feature Maxine Beneba Clarke on Saturday, June 22 from around 8pm.

We will be trying a few new things with the gig and with the support of MelbourneSpokenWord.com, we are hoping to use the gig to promote left-wing ideas within poetry in Melbourne, but also to promote poetry and spoken word to the wider left. We think that poetry and creative writing has a value in articulating what is wrong with the world we live in and a vision for a new one.

We’re going to try around with different days and times, trying to avoid clashes with other major poetry gigs in the city, as well as trying out themed open mics and linking some months to social campaigns. We’re hoping some of the ideas tested through our project might provide other events with ideas for new ways to advance poetry in Melbourne.

I’ve ran the Percy Shelly Slam twice, alongside Santo Cazzati, but this will be my first time running a regular gig. I know it’s a lot of work, which is why I’ve asked others to support me in booking features, consulting over dates, promoting and MCing on the night. I think this will be a valuable experiment for Melbourne Spoken Word and the experience can feed into the website and how we build the community as a whole. I know Paulie faced many challenges with the first incarnation, in organising it around other gigs and generally getting the word out about it.

We’re very excited to have Maxine Clarke help launch Keep Left again with a bang and we’re hoping other poets will help us lift the gig off the ground. A Facebook Page has been set up