Review by Randall Stephens

You know that problem you get with good performance poetry, you hear that killer line and think “yeah that’s fantastic, remember that one afterwards” then you get hit with another, and another, until by the end there’s simply been too many poignant moments for your memory to retain. Ultimately though, all that matters is that you saw something special, something original, something so bloody good you’ll finally sit down and actually write something for msw.com, hypothetically.

Emily Andersen’s “Love in the Key of Britpop” is an hour long spoken word narrative show, on at the Tuxedo Cat as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Some of us were lucky enough to see Emily recite a few sections from it at Sweetalkers early this year, so Steve Smart and I were really keen to get down there and see the whole thing, and were well rewarded. I’m reluctant to divulge too much about what the narrative is about for fear of unfair categorisation here, but here goes: it’s girl-meets-boy, girl lives in Australia, boy lives in London, girl and boy both have a passionate love for 1990s Britpop, and (incidentally) each other.

Where recently I’ve see any number of spoken word poets struggle to keep a coherent narrative interesting through the course of even a singular poem, it’s so refreshing to experience something really well structured and well paced, and stage-directed. Emily’s story hits the ground and running and never meanders into anything overly abstract or overly referential (all the more impressive given the show’s built around the idea of two people shared love of a currently/increasingly obscure music genre), and in spite or a very regular rhythm of delivery Emily’s discourse never stops moving the story forward. There’s a deft balance of biographical character, ironic humour, tragic pathos, wild romance that carries you all the way through the drama.

I still think (or at least want to fight against) the idea that my sad-sack-slacker generation is old enough yet to be nostalgic about anything yet, but for better or worse, the 1990s are now twenty years in the rear view mirror. The heart fluttering tribulations of Love, and the human connections we seek around mutual fondness of the art and music we love though, now that’s something as timeless as great spoken word.

‘Love in the Key of Britpop’ runs as part of Melbourne Fringe Festival, September 18- 24 & 26- 28, at the Tuxedo Cat, 8.15pm, Sundays 7.15. More details and tickets available at the Melbourne Fringe Page.

Words by Nicki Reed

Self-interest. It got me here. Self-interest isn’t only mine, you have it too. We are propelled by it; money, sex, art, sex, money. Self-interest has propelled me on a wet Wednesday afternoon to The Moat.

The Moat is a small café in the subterranean space of the State Library. As part of an Emerging Writer’s Festival and Australian Poetry collaboration, The Moet is involved in the Café Poets program. Randall Stephens is The Moat’s poet in residence.

I’m here to see Randall do his thing. He’s MCing a panel I’m on. We are to talk about erotic writing. Randall’s gonna life preserve me and you know, I’ve got to see if he’s up to it. Like I said, self interest.

I’ve met Randall. On his lunch hour at his day job. We met at the corner of Johnston and Smith, tram tracks, traffic, I stood on a corner and looked about for him. Is that him? What do poets wear? He probably wondered what does a novelist wear? This one wears jeans and a t-shirt and nerves around parking fines.

I guess I would have liked a cape.
Maybe Randall would have like a Fedora.

And back to The Moat.

My poet turns from man in the street to Poet Superhero. He’s Clark Kent morphing into Superman. Randall might say I’m overstating it. I’m not. Pith helmet, big brown leather coat, he sweeps into the cafe his poem already begun, a man in loud conversation.

Randall holds that tiny, deep space.

Buddy Wakefield’s ‘Information Man’ is seven minutes of eloquence, and anger, and imagery and challenge. The whole thing is a challenge. I make notes in the dark, ‘It takes a long time to make love with someone who hates themselves’ and ‘If you’ve never been rocked back by the presence of purpose
this poem is too soon for you’. The words are awesome, yep, but it is their delivery that amazes.

It’s not a recital, it’s an act, it’s not an act, it’s a performance. It’s a fucken gift, is what it is. It’s a poet digging another poet and he has dug hard to give the poem to us. Arm waving coat swishing hot doffing, a stutter, a raised voice, a stretched silence. ‘Information Man’ is mine now.

Poem two is one of Randall’s own and it’s called, ‘Because’.
I put down my pen. It’s all Randall, I don’t wanna make notes, I want to feel it.

‘Because’ is about a woman. A real woman? Someone he knows? A made-up woman? Somebody he’d like to know if only she rode into his life? Hey, I’d like to know her too. I took this stanza (Randall? stanza ? I don’t know) from Randall’s blog, Tales told by an Idiot

brown sugar not white
she’s films not actors
books not authors
she’s bikes not cars
a cyclist not a fix-ster
and a cyclist
not a lycra-ist

It’s not until Randall finishes his poem that I realize I haven’t taken a breath. I sit at my table and wait for my heart to get back to its sleepy regular.

Superhero poet? Rock star cyclist? Idiot? I don’t think so. Check Randall out – he’s working – and you decide. Me? I’m rapt. I have chucked any worry I have about our erotic writing panel in the bin. And at The Moat, on a wet Wednesday afternoon, I have made a discovery.

Self interest. It got me here.

By Santo Cazzati

Written on November 26

It was a shock to hear today of the death of Rhonda. We knew she was battling against cancer with no prospects but we did expect her to go on into next year. This death has been too sudden and has robbed us all of much beautiful work which Rhonda was expecting to complete for her and our satisfaction.

Rhonda presented two radio programmes on 3CR over about ten years. It was her idea to launch the Spoken Word programme from scratch at the end of 2008. She cast out into Melbourne’s grassroots poetry community with very little knowledge of it or contact with its members. Her passion, precision and persistence created four pilot programmes with a number of us poets and after the one in which I was involved, she asked me if I would like to join her in creating a regular programme.

I said yes without thinking about it very much and soon discovered that Rhonda had great determination and thoroughness about this project. I stuck with her not fully realising at first just how much energy and thought she was putting into it all. Months later, when we got the programme off the ground in its still now regular timeslot of every Thursday morning, I realised her vision had in fact completely sucked me in and had made me realise a number of important aspirations of my own – to archive Melbourne’s amazing cutting edge grassroots poetry talent and innovation; to share the intimacy of the radio studio with poets and friends I admire on our scene; to be part of a genuinely independent non-corporate left progressive media outlet; to live my long forgotten childhood fantasy of being a radio voice.

Rhonda knew that all of the presenters we used on Spoken Word had very different styles and strengths and celebrated this fact while still attempting an overall unified vision for the show. Her own on air style was distinctly calm and super organised. While I could match her in organisational skills (which she repeatedly acknowledged), it was her calm aspect that taught me to slow down my usual frenetic vocal delivery and agitated manner towards guests. Watching her panel and edit programmes gave me even more insights and ideas which I expanded.

I think a lot of people know Rhonda’s voice but few have met her. While I and my two other co-presenters Koraly Dimitriadis and Jessica Alice are used to getting out and about seeking out relatively extroverted performance poets for the programme, Rhonda specialised in finding very talented poets who were not performers and who may have been marginalised in some other ways too. Over these few years, she built up a network of such poets, providing much needed relief from the rest of us on the team and our preferences.

I always believed Rhonda was a fabulous poet in her own right and I’m pleased to notice that others began to think so too in the last year of her life as her publishing opportunities increased. She saw the programme as a platform for other writers and not herself and I now wish I had pushed her to record her own poetry more.

There were so many other aspects to Rhonda’s life that were notable – she attended and plugged every major left wing demonstration (she would always ask me when was the next refugee protest), marching along with her walking stick no matter what the distance or weather; she was preparing her PhD in history; she was doggedly battling the New Zealand government for many years over its treatment of her as a child; I’m sure there’s a whole lot more I don’t know.

3CR knew exactly what a dedicated member of the station she was. She was to receive the Spirit of 3CR Award on Thursday night at the annual awards night. She did get to hear about this and in fact when I returned home this afternoon from work, I found in my letterbox her acceptance speech which she posted last week and which she asked me to read at the awards night. It is an inspiring page of writing which will be my utter privilege to present.

Santo Cazzati is a performance poet on Melbourne’s grassroots poetry scene, winner of the Shelton Lea Award for best solo performance at Overload Poetry Festival, a longtime revolutionary socialist and a presenter of the Spoken Word radio programme on 3CR.