The not really all that secret project I’ve been working on has been released. The 2009 Overload Poetry Festival website is online!

Programme and venue details, as well as performer biographies are all available. Also featured are notes on our Partnered Projects (see what we are doing with the magnificent Bristol Poetry Festival and the incomparable Going Down Swinging) and details on registering for poetry workshops and the Overload Poetry Slam.

The good news is that while I was trawling my poetry collection, I found two issues of mod_piece that I had work printed in!

The extra good news is that I seem to have come close to finishing three pieces in a week! I’m not sure that that has happened before, I’m rather thrilled. I dread the idea of not having something new to read, let alone something new to read at a feature. So three poems at once is excellent. I think one may not be a performance piece, but that’s fine.

I hope you are having a decent Australia Day (in whatever way you celebrate it, if applicable). I was traditional, I drank beer and got sunburned at a BBQ. The oldies, it would seem, are the goodies. Meanwhile it’s late here, and I’m close enough to the Showgrounds to hear the Prodigy closing the Big Day Out. It’s also hot enough that sleep isn’t going to happen for a while to come, so it’s not like the noise levels are going to be a problem.

If you are planning to make new year resolutions (like I am), may you lie comfortably in the bed that you’ve made.

I just submitted some work, hopefully they’ll find their way into my success column. I’ve also had a rollicking time editing some of my favorite pieces. Sadly not in time to submit them where I had intended (got about 1/3 done there), oh well, nobody’s fault but mine.

See you next year.

Notice in The Australian here.

However, it took a conversation with a colleague at work who saw me on the show (I can’t get Ch. 31 where I live), followed with more talking to fellow poets to discover that not only does the show have a website, but the website has video! He recently put up the Candy Stripes gig that I was part of and you can see it there, along with a bunch of others, some of which include me and a plethora of other magnificent poets.

Red Lobster. Channel 31, Thursdays at 11:30pm or see the website!!

Reading: “Cultural Amnesia” – Clive James
Listening: “Strategy” – Something For Kate

I’m slowly working my way through the Indiefeed Performance Poetry podcast on my way to work in the mornings. What currently amounts to 300-and-a-bit poems recorded around the slam and open mic gigs of North America (including several recordings from great poets further back in history such as Auden, Ginsberg, Millay, etc.). There’s a wide selection of brilliant poetry of every stripe. This podcast is really worth checking out if you love the spoken word in all its many splendid forms.

The link to the site is http://performancepoetry.indiefeed.com/. Worth getting an iPod for.

It should also be noted that “Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam”, the new book by Cristin O’Keefe-Aptowicz is out and about, the prologue containing none other than the grand Melbournian poet Steve Smart. Sounds like a great book and I may be chasing a copy of it.

This message, may or may not have been brought to you by me entering a competition to win said book. Thus it is I fulfill my new year’s resolution of last year by enteing a poetry competition. Almost.

Listening: Taylor Mali – Labeling Keys
Reading: The Rattle Bag (ed. Ted Hughes & Seamus Heaney)

I’m currently reading my way through my whole poetry collection (which is…large, to say the least), and sorting the read books as I go.

Now, I have X categories of books:

1. Written and compiled by author (“From The Fool To The World” by Tim Hamilton)
2. Written by author but compiled by someone else (“Selected Poetry” by W.H. Auden, compiled by ….)
3. Multiple poets, single collection (“New Music” compiled and edited by John Leonard)
4. Multiple poets, series (Penguin New Poets 1-27)
5. Multiple poets, annual release (Best Australian Poetry 2003-2007, edited by Bronwyn Lea & Martin Duwell & Annual Guest Editor, UQP)

How do I go about getting my books into a semblance of order? As you can see above, I do have some ideas of my own but I’m eager to see how other people work this one out.

Oh, and if you are reading this on LiveJournal, come to the site and comment on this post!

Listening: Lee-Press On & The Nails – Brazil
Reading: Edna St. Vincent Millay – Early Poems

On Tuesday I skived off work to make my merry way down to Flinders St. for the Moving Galleries launch. I bumped into a bunch of fellow poets, some who I’d not seen in a long time, some I only knew by name and reputation.

The project organisers and Lynn Kosky (State Minister for Transport and the Arts, a fortuitous combo of portfolios, no?) made with the speeches. I was pleased to hear this project will have funding to run bi-annually for the next three years.

Speeches over, we were shepherded down to Platform 14 to wander along the length of one of forty trains that will be bedecked in artwork and poetry. Naturally, every one went hunting for their part of the whole. Cameras were brandished as people posed beside their work (see right).

You Melbournians who catch the train on a regular basis, keep an eye out for the Moving Galleries project. Lots of lovely stuff to read and look at. If you happen to see my work on your train, please comment here, I’d love to know who sees it and when! Everyone received a copy of their artwork (text or visual), mine is sitting coiled in its cardboard tube, waiting for a trip to the framers.

Reading: Ian McBryde – The Shade of Angels
Listening: Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart

Reading: Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney(ed.) – The Rattle Bag
Listening: Marillion – Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury