July | 2012 | Melbourne Spoken Word

Third spoken word night at Egg Gallery on August 5

Sunday, August 5 @ 5pm – Egg Gallery, 66a Johnston Street, Fitzroy – Facebook event

Egg Gallery along Johnston Street in Fitzroy have begun regular spoken word nights to complement their art exhibitions, which is an exciting new collaboration between the wordy and visual. They’ve been happening roughly monthly and the third night will take place on Sunday, August 5 from 5pm and feature seven poets doing ten-minute sets including Amy Bodossian, Amanda Anastasi, Benjamin Solah, Anna Fern, Emilie Collyer, Annerliegh Pappos & Steve Smart. It’s also hosted or ‘DJ’d’ by Santo Cazzati.

Previous performer Randall Stephens on the new event said,

“Melbourne poetry at it’s most basic, comin’ in from the cold off a busy street in a dive part of town, performing for mostly non-poets, sitting on a dusty concrete floor, drinking out a cask being passed around, an arm’s length from the speaker/audience. Nowhere to hide. Loved it.”

Other upcoming performances include Koraly Dimitriadis vs Ben John Smith in a poetry war at Polyester Books on August 3 as well as West Word in Footscray featuring Santo Cazzati and then George O’Hara on August 12 and 26 respectively. As always, keep up to date with upcoming events and features on the left sidebar or at our dedicated page.

Poetry Bombing the Peninsula

The Poetry Bomb is the New Yarn Bomb with street cred or so I’d like to think. On the 23rd of June, the Peninsula Poets Society set off on a journey to paste the walls of Frankston with their words to mark the event Poetry Bomb: Show Your Voice. Participants were instructed to come armed with home-made glue (the recipe is on our YouTube channel if you’re interested), a paint brush and printed poetry. It was freezing, the flu was caught, videos were made and many a wall was splashed with poetry. There were zines, haiku, longer pieces, political bombs, odes to lost lovers, philosophical musings, laugh out loud bombs and even some spoken word along the way.

Backed by the Frankston council and the local library, the day began by bombing the library, the walls of a motorcycle shop already lit up with awesome local street art, gallery lane and the walls leading to the Peninsula’s one and only Poetry Slam event location B’Artiste where the poets translated their bombed work onto words for the stage.

 

Brigitte Lewis is a Melbourne poet based on the Peninsula and an organiser of Peninsula Poets (check them out on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter). She has featured at Passionate Tongues among other venues and is the author of the erotic lesbian poetic verse novel, Rubbing Mirrors.

Submit to the collective Melbourne Spoken Word video poem

Melbourne Spoken Word dot com was created to promote and document the Melbourne spoken word and poetry community. And how better to promote the scene than with some spoken word poetry by a whole bunch of Melbourne poets. Let us create words together about Melbourne, poetry and how it all fits together.

We are calling for submissions of not poems, but video clips of lines and verses for a collective poem. The theme is on the Melbourne spoken word scene so send us lines or verses about the poetry community, the venues, faces, or understanding Melbourne poetically or how Melbourne affects poetry. We’re open to any style. Even better if they’re performed in iconic Melbourne locations or classic poetry venues. Be creative and unique!

Submit and upload the video clips in a .mov file via this link. Please keep the clips to 20 seconds or less, if not shorter, so we can fit as many poets in as possible. If they’re too long, we won’t be able to include it. Include your name/pseudonym and your suburb. Submissions close Sunday, the 2nd of September at midnight. I will select the best ones and edit them together into one video, including the poets’ names.

Then we can share it around to showcase the amazing poetic talent we have in Melbourne and the website where they can find out all about it. What do you all say?

Darkwing Dubs comes to Melbourne for a show and workshop

Brisbane’s Darkwing Dubs is “set to put a fire under Melbourne spoken word’s cold winter ass” with a live show and two-day workshop from Friday the 13th of July to Sunday the 15th. The host of Jam Jar poetry impressed Melbourne poetry events with shows last year at Slamalamadingdong, Sweetalkers, and Passionate Tongues. He’s definitely one of the most unique and engaging performers in Australia mixing the moving and amusing, spoken word, hip hop and theatre.

Institute of Postcolonial Studies in North Melbourne, he will be doing a special half an hour set on Friday, the 13th of July with added performances by Tariro Mavondo, Randall Stephens and Sista Zai and hosted by Steve Smart followed by a two-day workshop on Saturday and Sunday. And it’s all hosted by the fabulous ‘Stillwaters Women’s Storytelling Collective.’ More information at their Facebook event.

  • Sponsored by…

    Melbourne Poets Union

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