New Ish

(c) http://katykelley.tumblr.com/post/5670949379/comfort-zone

I've been thinking about the way we write and what we write and how we challenge ourselves recently. After a conversation this morning, I realised there's been this unwritten rule at Jam Jar Poetry Slam (this Sunday 11th Nov 3pm y'all!), where you bring new shit.

Of course, no-one's gonna string you up if you perform or read the same piece from a previous month, but at the last slam in October, there were a few folks who did the same piece again.

I'd rather you got up and performed than didn't at all, however when it's a monthly event, and a regular crowd forms, is it artistically okay to perform the same 2 minute poem as last time? I don't know, and I'm only riffing here, so please don't take my word as bond...

Personally as host, I'll always try to bring something the crowd hasn't seen before. On occasion I've done the same piece from a few months back at the Jam Jar slams, but as a general rule, I'll usually have new material. Sometimes it's great and goes down a treat, it ALWAYS shows me if a certain piece needs a bit more tinkering. Thanks to following that ethos, over the past 12 months or so I have over 20 different performance poems up my sleeve. Some suit certain audiences better, of course, but overall I've built up a pretty strong repertoire of pieces which I can pull out almost any time.

In this context I think of performance poetry as something in between stand up comedy and a band. I'd be pissed if I went to see Billy Connelly and he gave me the same jokes and stories as on his dvd's. However it would piss me off as much if I saw Radiohead and they didn't play something from OK Computer or Kid A.

So there's an element of "play it again Sam" because you enjoy the delivery and the art of the piece, like a song, yet in the up-close-and-personal world of performance poetry, there is a need for the conversation between audience and poet to be fresh and new like a stand-up's jokes.

But I'd hate it if performers, especially those who are only just getting their feet wet, felt some sort of pressure to give new material all the time. I work on my art constantly. I have both the time and the energy to commit to writing new material. A lot of other people don't. The slam at Jam Jar can be a confronting enough space as it is - no mic, a round space, very close vocal crowd - without having to always write new material.

But remember that it's a small community, this poetry thing. The same folks come to most of these events.

Eleanor Jackson and Betsy Turcot are endlessly inspiring because they not only work full time, but also write whole new sets of poetry for specific gigs. When Betsy came to Jam Jar in October, she had a fresh 12 minute set prepared. I've barely seen Eleanor Jackson repeat a thing.

I'm not saying be prolific every single month. And your challenges may be different: this month you might read your piece, next month you might have it memorised. You might skip a month, so you can get a new piece ready for the next one. There's a lot of valid choices to make. But playing it safe may just be the easiest way to distance yourself from your audience.

I was incredibly impressed that Martin Ingle, who has begun to acquire a nice little collection of poems, read something new at the recent QLD Poetry Slam heats. He could have pulled anything from this year's Jam Jar performances out, yet he didn't. And he didn't make it through to the finals either.
Yet through the poetry community there were whispers of pride and encouragement for a guy pushing himself constantly. Which is why I recommended him to the State Library to be sacrificial poet at the state final, he did a great job, got paid too, and it could almost be argued that - more so than the runner-up or the winner - Martin is the go-to guy for a fresh new voice in poetry.
Because he's starting to push himself in new directions with his art. Therefore making an exciting experience to watch.

Try to enter the challenge of constantly writing.
Create feasible, realistic goals and go for them.
Try something new.
Make your art on the knife's edge.

At Graham Nunn's recent workshop he commented that, if you are a writer, you write.

So write.

Slammy

I remember a few years back when I won the Qld Poetry Slam, and I thought I was awesome. It was something that I wanted. So. Bad.

And this year I got to host the QLD Poetry Slam heats and final with the lovely Tessa Leon and I gotta say it was a blast.

See there's this thing that happens in slam.

You want to win. Most of the time.

And as a host. You have to take the piss. Most of the time.

And somewhere in the middle you meet that careful see-saw of acknowledging the effort and the nerves of the poets involved, while also acknowledging that, realistically, this is the smallest stepping stone in a performance/poetry/artistic future.

And that it's just a frikkin slam.

So thanks to the following poets who just performed on Friday night. Just did their thing for the poetry, the stage, and not for the points.
Thank you Betsy Turcot for giving me a poem. And a beautiful one.
Thank you Eleanor Jackson for giving me a reason to enjoy slam.
Thank you Angela Willock for stepping up and just being you.

And thank you to all the young kids who were there from regional QLD areas and beyond. Sharing their stories for the sake of sharing their stories. You were all really great.

It was a blast. And there's always next year. And the year after. And the year after.

Home part 1

Home has always been a strange concept for me.

Relatively speaking, home is a place right? A house, a suburb, a street... whatever.

See I moved around a lot when I was a kid. I believe I never stayed in the same primary school for more than one year. In grade 2 I moved up to Tewantin on the Sunshine Coast because my mum had met a guy and we moved in with him. It was not good. It was not bad either. I remember a sense of anxiety and depression surrounding that place. And my mum became a vegetarian and by default so did I. I've harboured a hatred of squash ever since...

But every weekend I would hit the waves and be the best little surf grommet I could be. That was my home: the beach, the waves.

I was scared and awed by the huge goannas that would slip their way up trees with their giant claws and I even remember being swept up by a rip and my mum rescuing me.

Holy shit did she paddle her arse off!

When we moved back to Brisbane it was once again back to the flats, the apartment blocks, the little cheap areas where kids ruled the crevices and parents thought they new EXACTLY what we were up to. And they probably did. But I know we got away with more than we got in trouble for...

I was lucky enough to live next door to my cousins at one stage there. And to this day I have an excellent relationship with my cousin Josh. We grew up together, got in trouble together, fought, hated, raged, laughed, came home scratched up, fell over, fell up, threw up, and had to sit in opposite corners to cool off...

This was in the Capalaba and Cleveland area east of Brisbane.

And of all the 'spaces' in my life, I can still go back to Capalaba and know that this is where I'm from. While we moved around a lot, that area of Brisbane has remained the space that grew me up so to speak. To this day the scent, sight, and feeling of mangroves makes me feel okay about the world. Thanks to regular visits to Wellington Point, Cleveland and that whole Moreton bay area.

My grandparents always lived in a caravan for all of my young life, and even now they're off in Tasmania doing the whole grey nomad thing. But they were nomads and a little bit gypsy before they were grey. Always off, my Dar playing country music at RSL's and bowls clubs across the country. Always with a little bit of money in the pocket for the next adventure. Fishing rods, crab pots and a little dingy carefully arranged on their dust covered 4x4.

Nowadays I can step into a caravan and, thanks to numerous holidays with my grandparents, feel right at home.

And when my cousins moved out to Mundoolun in Jimboomba, I would spend days and weeks with them in my teenage years, exploring the scrub, chasing cows, riding bikes, swimming in waterholes, screaming SNAKE and trying to catch yabbies. I would eventually move out there for a few years in my late teens and love the sound of green tree frogs at night, of thick raindrops on tin roofs and motorbikes streaking across the dry countryside.

So between the moves throughout Capalaba, Wellington Point, Cleveland, Tewantin, Runcorn (where I spent my teenage years), Jimboomba, and wherever a certain caravan was parked, my concept of home has roughly been a roving venture.

In my adult life I've lived in Armidale NSW, Kangaroo Point, East Brisbane, Browns Plains, Heritage Park, Annerley and South Brisbane.

So what's home to me?

A safe space, a space where I can sleep comfortably, feel loved, listen to music, write my poems, cook a mean feed and know that I can come to at anytime, in any situation, without judgement or vilification.

So why all this talk of home?

Well I've recently lived in a house where hippies ruled and the garden was king. A beautiful house, full of love and laughter.

Then shit got weird. Well, it was always a bit weird. Flatmates that want constant attention and wanna be best friends can get tiring. But when flatmates like that will do anything for friendship, like inviting wandering junkies into the home, that's a bit strange. And when said junky takes a friends bike from the back yard, that's a bit shit. But when said junky 'loses' bike so brings back a $4g bike as replacement, that's just suspect. But hey! At least she bought a bike back yeah? (That bike was taken to the cops and had been reported stolen... so...)

Then when said junkie is snooping around the house a week later after just inviting herself in, that's a bit creepy.

Then when said junkie walks into my room while I'm sleeping, hungover and groggy and steals my wallet, you'd think something had to be done right?

You see I loved that house, wanted to live there for at least a year, but the concept of locks has boggled the mind of my weed smoking, "the universe has the answers" flatmate. And when the rest of the house broached this subject with him, he nearly threw the keys at us in a huff and puff and blow your home away.

So I'm leaving, shell on my back and antennae strapped tight to my head.

Home eh?

Tying this huge tirade together (thank you if you've made it this far) is the fact that I'm co-ordinating the Storytelling section of this year's Home Festival on July 21st at Raymond Park, Kangaroo Point. Poetry, storytelling, spoken word, theatre, jamming, roving performances etc. Yep we'll be living, loving and learning about home and what it means to all the various demographics of the local 4169, 4101 etc postcodes. It's Home Festival! So what does home mean to you? Got a story to tell? What's in your street? Any ghosts? Where's home to you and how do you define it? How is it destroyed? How is it upheld? Have you lived in the same house since like forever and what does that mean home is to you? Is home just a pillow? Is home a place in your heart? Is it a smell/touch/feel/sight?

I know if I've been travelling, there's nothing like the sight of that big brown dusty river to make me feel like I'm home.

Home Fest on Facebook

In a small moment

I’m not trying to tell you what to do but...

You’ve gotta make something bigger than yourself

In a small moment.

You’ve gotta see the moon through the eye of a needle

and splash oceans when jumping puddles

You’ve gotta give the finger to meteors who just wanna

rain on your parade

You’ve gotta take a shot and

pin robin hood to the fuckin tree

Dip your fingers in a bubbling pot of

make believe

and lick the bowl clean

Be sated.

You’ve gotta make something bigger than yourself in a small moment.

Hand David a small rock

and teach him how to throw it

Make a deal with Medusa just so you can taste her venom.

Ask him if he knows where god is

Ask her if she’s spoken to father time

You gotta tell a scientologist “hey man, you might be right…”

and ask jesus to fix that wobbly leg on your dining table

you gotta rewind a melody secretly hopin you will

hear the devil speakin.

You’ve gotta make something bigger than yourself

In a small moment.

Tell him you love him like the mountains love to caress clouds

Tell her she makes you believe in

porn again

Stick a toothpick in the earth and move mountains

Move a tongue and move history

shoot epiphanies out of clichés and rock the walls with a slingshot

You gotta perceive love in a sentence

hate in a question mark

read between the lines

but burn the fuckin paper nonetheless.

You’ve gotta make something bigger than yourself

In a small moment.

DWD 2011

Jumping waterfalls!

Wallaby Ck Fest made me remember why life is for living for another year. My 3rd year at Wallaby Creek and the festival's tenth anniversary, what a blast.

Bands like Kooii and Barons of Tang are a fundamentally vital part of Australian music. (Also: everything else that was there.) I've got a real soft spot for those guys n gals, we've done the festival together for a couple of years and it was great to jam again. Poets and musicians jamming, it works beautifully. It's called songwriting fools! Ha.

So anyway: waterfalls, streams, trees, forest, butterflies... you get it?

Jumping rainbows man!

The last few weeks have been a surreal and impressive series of events squished into my soul.

First off, please know - I effin love these guys. Yeah, the ones to the left there on the page. They're awesome.

Although I will humbly admit the hairy one and the female one are a bit more impressive than me.

WE, yes WE as BRC went to Canberra recently for the first national Australian Poetry Slam summit. We got to hang out heaps and do guerrilla poems on the streets of Canberra with random beatboxing kids called SlimTim.

Oh, and then the poets arrived.

It was great to perform and be a part of workshops with heaps of amazing Australian poets as well as Ken Arkind and Jive Poetic from the States.

If you wanna know what's happening with slam over the next few years, well we're gonna have a few extra rounds for the finals in Sydney. And that's really it!

It puts us in a bit of a good spot with similar rules as the states, which - it was talked briefly about - could tie in with the Oz contingent for future international slam things.

This video was made on the (supposed) last day on earth. Rapture baby...

Darkwing Dubs - If Jesus Was Born Again. from thomas on Vimeo.

Made by Thomas Day and Darkwing Dubs sauntering through West End's main strip.

When the world begins again

So I've decided to give this another go. When last I blogged stuff it felt really weird and uninviting, especially to me. I don't think there was anything bad about what was on here. But... I dunno... it just kinda got the better of me until I convinced myself to tear the fuckin site down. Which is impossible or something because it's still here, blinking at me like the eye of Sauron.

The picture is from my recent trip to NT and a small Indigenous community I visited to volunteer in a school holiday program. I spent much time writing and exploring the surrounding countryside, when I wasn't playing basketball with kids who taught me to swear in Arrente language...

There's a road that leads to

nowhere

and everywhere

at once.

Where the earth stares at the

stars

and can't hide its

lust.

Where they roll out the

red carpet for you.

Red sky

and

red dust.

On this road that leads to

nowhere

and everywhere

at once.