Roar Poets - Tour Diary 2 - Nimbin

Nimbin.
Depending on your experience with this small town in the hills of northern NSW, the very name has made your decision for you based on what I'm going to say next. You will either be disbeilieving and write it off entirely, or you will nod your head and go "yep". I doubt anyone will be somewhere in between.
Nimbin is the spiritual home of performance poets.
There I said it.
Now, like I said before, many of you will go "huh?" and shake your head, smiling at the thought of a bunch of stoners having a base of strong performance poetry.

Well.
This is the place that began the Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup 11 years ago. Nimbin is the original stomping ground for David Hallet and Robin Archbold. 2 poets who still stand strong as premiere performers in Australian poetics. In fact, Archie founded the cup, David won it in its first year. So there ya go.
But you will still probably shake your head and go "no, bloody stoners trippin out to words I bet..."
And you're right. Kinda.
We arrived in Nimbin on a chilly Thursday's eve to find Gail M. Clarke, co-founder and current bad-arse boss lady of NPPWC scurrying about collecting raffle money, organising sound, and generally chatting to people lounging at The Oasis Cafe, Nimbin's home of poetry nights. What this lady does is phenomenal. And yes, the joints were rolling thick and fast and the murmuring locals and silent backpackers all drank their coffees and teas with red-eyed abundance.
But, unlike Armidale, which had no idea what it was in for, they were ALL there for poetry. It's what Nimbin loves. Cultivated over the past 11 or more years this small town thrives on words. Big, small, political, humorous, love, hate and everything in between and outside the box, Nimbin is an underrated poetry Mecca.

Martin, Angela and I knew that, respected it, and gave the best performances we've possibly ever done. It was hot, frothing, loving, aching, potent poetics.
And the crowd loved it.
If you wanna get into the stoner thing, fine. But you're ignoring what Nimbin Poetry's really all about. The superficiality of Nimbin is that it's a place to get high. But anyone who's been to the NPPWC knows that Nimbin is a place to perform to a beautiful crowd. Roaring, cheering, laughing, crying. We took them there on Thursday night. But only because they were so willing to go with us.

Roar Poets Tour - Diary 1 - Armidale

Armidale is cold. I forgot all about that. After living there for a few years I'd forgotten that the beautiful rolling hills and rocks sit beneath a layer of frost so sharp when you speak the air slices your tongue.
But we got there... with our multi-layered pants and jumpers and socks...

There's no-one in Armidale you know? Unless you count the uni. But I'm not even sure if the uni counts itself as part of Armidale. I know when I was a student there we could exist pretty well without any form of town contact... that's either good or bad depending on how hungry you are/n't or how stoned you are/n't.

But I programmed the tour to included Armidale for one reason: it's the beginning of things.

It was in Armidale I really learnt to rap, to write, to produce... and to make friends.

So here I was again, after all these years, showing my art to the people who had supported me from the beginning.
Sure, it wasn't ME they were supporting. It was their sons and friends who I happened to be in a band with. But I took what I could and still ran with it. It still mattered.

SO...
We arrived in Armidale to find that only a few of the flyers had been handed out, the radio station wouldn't get back to us, and the community group we'd been in contact with for months, desperately trying to get any form of workshops or community connections, were STILL not taking us seriously, or just not... I dunno...
what do you call it when people don't get back to you and then give you backhanded support at the last minute?...
On top of that we'd been told the place would've emptied out for school holidays...
It was fucking frustrating and a bit like being punched in the guts.

So when people showed up to the gig. When a room full of people watched and listened intently. When a table actually said they were here for poetry... Well suffice to say I was pretty happy. When the people who had been there to support their family and friends said "wow, it's great to see what you've been up to all these years, fantastic", I felt like I still mattered. Which is a nice feeling. And to be perfectly down and depressingly honest probably the first time I've felt that this year.

And BrokenWord were fantastic. It was them that most people were there to see, and they did not disappoint. What was amazing was that Martin Ingle and Angela Willock kept people in the room after the BrokenWord boys had done their thing. The strength and raw honesty of their performances kept people gripped. The 90% of the room who weren't there for poetry were all of a sudden deeply invested in the poetry. The bar... the fucking bar where everyone milled and talked and yelled drunkedly fell silent on more than one occasion in all of our sets.

And being the organiser and facilitator of the event I was worried we wouldn't be able to make any money to pay the venue hire or even ourselves... but we did. Yes we lost money still. Fuel and food dents finances dramatically but hey... whatever... we got at least one free meal out of it...  and the venue hire. And we were all pretty clear from the beginning that this would not be a money making venture... it would be gypsy survival. It would be rolling with the punches and making the most of it. It would be: Happiness = people + fires + conversations.
Which we had plenty of on Saturday night after the "slab" gig...

So now on to Nimbin. The Oasis Cafe. 7pm Thursday night 20 June.
The Roar Poets Tour is alive. It's a thing now. Not just a few words online or a FB event.
And we're excited and enjoying the taste so far.
Sure Armidale was cold. But if the rest of the shows end up being half as warm-hearted as Armidale then I think we'll be pretty happy.

The Sorry Tree

It's World Suicide Prevention Day, and after being introduced to the crew from Soften The Fuck Up, I thought I would write a piece concerning the taboo of suicide, especially in young men. However, I always felt it was rather forced for me to talk about something that wasn't directly related to me. Then I realised if I don't talk about it, and leave it only to those with first-hand experience, I just contribute to the very taboo I'm talking about.

I met a guy a year ago who talked about when I was in my rap crew M.A.S. and how, when I left, a few fellahs followed my art still.
Then he told me when they "fell off".
At first I didn't know what he meant.
Then it clicked, and I understood.

This piece is dedicated to those boys, whose names I don't know, whose faces I never saw, but knew me as someone, or something, that made their life a bit brighter.
And also to those boys who I never met and will never know and who never knew me at all.

Peace. Love to you.
Scotty