Last Minute To Mean It

[MSWPF18] Going Down Swinging presents In Full Swing

Going Down Swinging brings you a night of readings and performances from Fury, Soreti Kadir and Andy Jackson, MC’d by past editor Geoff Lemon. The evening celebrates Going Down Swinging’s 39-year history of publishing digital, print and audio anthologies and producing special, sold-out live events.

ALL AGES / WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE

(Part of the Melbourne Spoken Word & Poetry Festival 2018 #MSWPF18.  For full program of this exciting 2 week festival, go to https://mswpf.com.au)

David Stavanger / How to Be An Alpha Male

David Stavanger performs “How to Be An Alpha Male” at The Wheeler Centre presented by The Melbourne Visiting Poets Program, with Melbourne Spoken Word, Australian Poetry, The nonfictionlab and Rabbit Poetry Journal.

For more spoken word from around Melbourne, subscribe to our channel.

David Stavanger is a poet, writer, performer, cultural producer and former psychologist. In 2013 he won the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, resulting in the release of The Special (UQP), his first full-length collection of poetry which was awarded the 2015 Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. His prose-poem ‘The Electric Journal’ was a finalist of the 2016 Newcastle Poetry Prize. David is also sometimes known as pioneering Green Room-nominated ‘spoken weird’ artist Ghostboy, winning the 2005 Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup and establishing poetry slam and spoken word in QLD via his active work with the Australian Poetry Slam and Woodford Folk Festival. David was the Co-Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival from 2015-2017, a period known for its inclusive programming and stronger focus on CALD and first nation voices.

Beauty that Happens in the Pause: Interview with Eleanor Jackson

Eleanor Jackson and her infant daughter graciously hosted me for this interview. Over tea and cake, we had a wide-ranging conversation about spoken word and its revolutionary potential.

One of the things I love about poetry is that it is deeply transgressive, precisely because of its anti-capitalist tilt. We live in a system that assigns a utility to every person and their time. To do something that is a ‘waste of time’ and makes no money — it is a revolutionary act.

I was listening to your performance of “Shave and a Haircut” at Slamalamadingdong. I was struck by the musicality, how it evoked the sounds and rhythms of jazz. I wanted to ask about musical influences. Is that a conscious thing for you?

Yes, spoken word and poetry is about musical language. There is so much resonance between the way that musicians and poets use language: for its rhythm, tonality and song. My earliest musical loves were discovered scrounging through my dad’s vinyl collection of 70s classics, including all of Joni Mitchell’s work. She is an incredible lyricist, a beautiful painter and writer, a phenomenally talented musician. Her sense of story and lyric form is just exquisite. I loved the standard folk troubadours like Bob Dylan or Elton John. The 70’s rock-folk classics almost seem daggy in their sincerity, but I think they are still really beautiful. They continue to influence me at some level, although I don’t use end rhymes the way that musicians seek to use them in their songs.

The other striking feature of your work is pacing, your modulation of both pace and emotion.

If there’s one thing I miss in Australian spoken word, it is space and silence. Pace is about finding the beauty that happens in the pause. The pause allows for contemplation and absorption, allows for the time and space to sit with a thought, to then decide if the words truly resonate. Poet and spoken word artist Anthony O’Sullivan said he thought m