So Long, Schmoozers!

My reign as the Schmooze Artist in Residence is now over.

On the night of the 111th Schmooze, which also happened to be Schmooze's 9th birthday, I returned the badge and gun I was issued with.

I presented Phillip with a framed hand written Poem I had composed especially for the occasion

Photo by Kelly Chen Photography

Tesla Coils

Philip,
as puck on pipes,
Calls the dance.
                    We hum
Charged with Atmospheric
                            electricity

Synapse snaps from node to node
                 you to me
a tight-winding, loose coupling
magnetic energy edging
the pixie ring.
The Schmoozoisie of Oberon's
royal court;
each a rung on the other's ladder
each a step in the choreographer's scheme
each a portal to the other's dream.

My Artist in Residency blog can be reviewed here.

Kangara Waters Performance

Being both irreverent and civic minded, I took my poetry, anecdotes and puns along to Kangara Waters, a retirement village hidden in the outer-northern-but-soon-to-be-central-if-we-dont-stop-urban-sprawl-and-build-more-medium-density-housing district of Belco.

I managed to escape car-jacking or a brutal knife fight with the local denizens by pulling into the bully-proof named street "Joy Cummings Place".

Interestingly, Kangara Waters was ungated. Curious considering its location near Lake Ginnindera College and the bowling alley. Perhaps it was the overwhelmingly manicured setting, the building's "modern retiree" stylings, the permanent autumn feeling, the crushing ennui and the impression  the sky had transformed into a colossal stop watch that was held in expectant hands that protected it from the depredation of the teenaged.

The place was like the start of Edward Scissorhands or Blue Velvet. I'm sure it appeals to people who have run out of serotonin. everywhere you look you say gosh, that's interesting.

I parked at the entrance and was immediately lost.

The staff were very helpful and soon had herded a crowd together.

I performed for half an hour. Afterwards I lunched with several of the more attentive residents and we spoke of the funny threads of life, their stories and the impact that a stroke or dementia and the banality of existence, and how that half hour of poetry was an injection of colour on a beige canvas.

It made me glad that I chose my pieces a little more wisely than usual.

Stroke

I have lain here since yesterday

on the cold tiled floor

the refrigerator door is open, and chill

the pot on the stove top boiled dry

I cannot answer the phone,

or call for help

I cannot feed my dog

or fight him off.

As I was leaving, the director spoke with me about the Try To Remember program in the UK, which had success blending poetry and caring with dementia patients. I agreed to come back, if only to perform, but my head was filling with ideas.

walking out I realised that Kangara Waters was an exceptional facility, with wonderful, caring staff and not just a place to dispose of the olds. More of a place to dispose of them thoughtfully.

To pull this post back from irreverence, and maybe my soul from the hell-fires, and give myself a hollywood ending;  Dementia is a fearful loss of one's history, perhaps through poetry I can help readdress this. I wouldn't mind being involved in a Try To Remember-esque project.

Like all good stories, the character goes on a journey. I drove home.

D Day

Well, actually, bin day.  but that didnt seem as dramatic.

Friday is the day you get things done that you should have done on a more convenient day earlier in the week.

Due to this procrastination, I'm gunna overload you, dear readers.

you were warned.

Canberra Poetry Slam Farewell to 2012

Not going to Corinbank until Saturday?

well we want you! Come along to the last front Slam for 2012!

The theme is "Undecided between Blues or Valhalla."

The night opens with the open mic at 7:30 followed by the slam at 8
Join the slam and compete for cash prizes!

The features will be Steve Smart & Kim Jeffs from MELBOURNE!

The Slam will include the music of beauty and passion from
THE NIGHT CAFE, a latin/gypsy/jazz ensemble who will improvise intro/outro music for slammers and melt your nerves with their sultry sound.

Bios:

Over the past fifteen years Steve has performed his work and that of others thousands of times in hundreds of venues across the world. He's more famous than most people you know, but much less famous than Ryan Moloney who plays Toady in Neighbours.

Career highlights include 'Mouth Off' at the Sydney Opera House; the one man show 'Wild Optimist: rises and falls of a performance poet' (Brisbane Festival Under The Radar); performing at Bar Open's 10th Birthday celebration (Fitzroy); winning the audience award for 24 Hour Fix (short theatre competition); and co-featuring at the Berkeley Slam in California. Upcoming events include feature performances at the 2012 WA Poetry Festival and the Queensland Poetry Festival.

Kim Jeffs’ writing began as a response to the Black Saturday fires – as therapy. She set out to create a small book of memories for her children. Instead, she found poetry. Or perhaps, says Jennifer Compton, poetry sent a wildfire to chase Kim to its arms.

Epicormic growth is the new shoots thrust out by trees burnt by inferno. It is the tree’s desperate attempt to remain alive – for without leaves for photosynthesis the tree will assuredly die. After catastrophe, we must grow. To remain static is to invite death. Kim’s poetry mirrors her recovery – intense, painful, bleakly humorous, but not without moments of joy.


I first met Steve Smart at This Is Not Art in 2009, I met Kim on my tour to Melbourne in June and became acquainted with The Night Cafe through Schmooze,  and can say each are an extraordinary act in their own right and we have all three of them at the one place, throw in your regular host the Flying V, who'll no doubt be ready to improvise with The Night Cafe (is ready to improvise the same as planned spontaneity?) and its going to be a complete corker of a show!

7:30 at the Front Gallery and Cafe in Lyneham, 30th of November.

This Is Not Art is over. for 2012.

Another Labour Day long weekend has come and gone and with it Australia's leading emerging and experimental arts festival, This Is Not Art (TINA). and were TINA a person, they'd be intellectual, irreverent, inspiring, bright, sunny, humid, intoxicating and alarming thinner than before.

2010 was my favourite of the TINAs i have attended, even though the year before the Tragic Troubadours were in the program. Since 2010, the program has grabbed less of my attention, and less of my heart. The change has come due to funding changes, no doubt, and two of the five constituent festivals have splintered off (the People's Popular Front of Judea - SPLITTERS!).  you can measure the decline in the number of aisles of tables at the traditional Sunday Zine Fair, dropping from four in 2010 to two in 2012.  The budget cuts, or the loss of Sound Summit, robbed the Zine Fair of live music and forced the music-thirsty zinesters to overlook the blues guitarist thrashing away outside the Odditorium from the King Street Carpark's Fence.

The cuts in 2011 had forced the TINA Festival Clubhouse to move from its location on church street and into the Great Northern Hotel,  which previously had formed a venue in its own right. This de-centralised the festival, making a lazy person like me less likely to attend events on the western side of the city.

TINA's not the only thing to have changed in those four years, I'm older, less employed, more emergent. I'm no longer single, a little more sane and not so focused on being entertained as being educated, and here TINA shines.

TINA may have lost me from its twirling majorette of experimental theater, new musical sounds or cutting edge digital arts but it has caught me in it's cerebral net woven from panels, talks and reviews. I'm speaking about two of the remaining festivals, Critical Animals and National Young Writers Festival.

From the Critical Animals i listened to great talks such as Eva Bujalka's talk on George Bataille and how his references sublimates his writing from pornography to literature or the panels at the NYWF which featured successful writers like the panel on biography when young (Ben law, Marieke Hardy, Micheala Maguire) or translating cultures through poetry with Stuart Cooke and Eileen Chong.

These events (and not limited to just those mentioned, mind you) were gold.  Even better, the events were often podcasted, and are available here. if you are an artsy person, or on the periphery, and are thinking about funding, listen to the podcast "Who's getting Grants (and how)?".  Thats the sort of bread-and-butter knowledge writers, musicians, visual artists, artistic collectives need. AND ITS FREE!.
superfluous full stop for emphasis.

TINA 2012 had a lacing of JC in it too. Each year I have gone I have found a way to get some of my poems heard. 2009 was with the troubadours, 2010 i wrote and performed Human Caviar at the "Non-erotic Erotica", 2011 i wrote and performed My Breakfast Had A Face for "Oh Nigella, We Love Thee".

"I was a sol-ja, a revolutionary..."

My Breakfast Had A Face was served up again on thursday night's World Hurl Anti Slam, a slam without scores, with 2 awesome feature acts, and where i was selected by the feature judge to have performed the best on a night where the competition was so strong!

That crowd darkly in my mind.

The two feature acts were Vincent Gates and Amelia Walker, the latter donating her latest book Sound and Bundy* as first (and only) prize.

* Sound and Bundy has been a corker so far, inspired by the Ern Malley affair, 3 made up poets invent another poet. A surreal blurring of verse novel and a (or several) poetic anthology. Fabulous!

Following World Hurl, I had a weekend of booze related brain damage, and mental stimulation. I began to realise that TINA wasnt a remnant of past glories, but vibrant, and interesting. That maybe it was me that had grown stolid, phlegmatic and interacted with the festival in a way that made it seem like Critical Animals and NYWF had subsumed all other avenues of interest, and then limped on like cephalopagic twin.

Perhaps what was missing from this TINA was more JC? I attended the World Hurl on the thursday night and felt like I had achieved everything I came to do. Next year, i'd want to be more involved.
I left Newcastle feeling creatively recharged, inspired.

TINA 2013, Sharpen your pitchforks, I'm coming.

Success with Poetry In Motion

National Poetry Week 2012 featured what regular readers would know as the Poetry Train,  An event coordinated by Fiona McIlroy, a Cafe Poet, between CountryLink Rail and Australian Poetry Limited.

20 Canberran poets boarded and frenetically scribbled poetry as the train chugged towards Sydney. these poems were read on the hour to the poets and passengers who shared the journey. This were then read at Sydney's Central Station, and Australian Poetry had organised another reading at the NSW State Library and we formed the heart of a special slam at the Friend In Hand pub in Glebe.

The poems were collected to be published within a chapbook, and each was entered into the Countrylink Poetry Prize.

My poem, 'Upon Looking Back' was chosen by noted poet Charlotte Clutterbuck to be the recipient of the Countrylink Poetry Prize.

You can read the AP Poetry In Motion article here.

Upon Looking Back

I sat backwards as the train took off

it felt like

coming home/not leaving

the trees moved backward

the clouds rolled backward

rushing towards Canberra

not Sydney

The passengers looked forward to what was ahead

I mulled the past

The sign:

LARENEG

GNITIAW

MOOR

What else moved in reverse?

I thought perhaps/that just maybe/possibly/seems weird

But I was travelling backwards

through time?

things seemed less

modern.

strange and older.

I had no watch to test the theory

No. No I was not.

just the next stop was

NAYEBNAEUQ

September Schmooze

Good morning Dyslexiconians

Just a short note spruiking Schmooze's September Schmooze , the innovative networking company at which I have my artist residency.  I'm performing there for the aschmoozement of the members and their guests.

As the event is hosted by Hindmarsh Living, I might wheel out [pun intended] some old but themed poems such as
Your Grandfather
Grandad!
(De)Escalators At The Food Court
and one of my favourites, Stroke.

Hopefully aschmoozing enough to make the guests laugh at inopportune times, spraying their co-members with soylent green.

I'll be there performing A La Carte Blanche from menu of poems, some mushy, some sweet, some with a little spice, and some straight up hard like the tipple of whiskey Gran takes to make it between bingo and the endless hours of solitaire waiting beside the phone.

I'm going to finish this link-filled post on a highly referential note with this  little scone.

JC.

Book Launch Tonight (OMFGOFABAASAPSOIA)*

Tonight, 6 pm at Paperchain Bookstore, Triptych Poets Issue 3 is launched.

This is my first book of poetry, so of course i'm as excitable as a depolarising neuron (look it up).
Actually, rather than your regular book of poetry, its 3 suites in one, a hybrid, a demogorgon that features Canberra's P.S. Cottier, Geelong's Joan Kerr and Myself.

The night will be officiated by poet Paul Hetherington.

i feel like a party.
I'll be there to eat cheese and drink wine
and do some lines (...of poetry)

Come along!

Love
JC

PS: All my thanks to Blemish Books. If I've forgotten someone, I'm sorry but I've just gave away the last of my thanks.

*OMFGOFABAASAPSIOA is Oh My Fucking God Of Amaze-Balls And Anal Sex And Public Service Or Internet Acronyms

Publicity Trail!

Dear readers (listeners, if you use text to voice),

You can catch an interview regarding the launch of Triptych Poets #3 on Artsound Radio fm 90.3 or fm 92.7  at midday today.  The interview will include fellow contributor, P.S. Cottier, Leslie, our publisher from Blemish Books and myself.

Tune in!

regards
JC

Poetry In Motion Wrap Up

As another week winds up I look forward to another big weekend... and realise i forgot to wrap up last weekend.

The poetry train chugged into Sydney with me composing a few poems, drinking several of those tiny bottles of wine. I made more jokes than I did poems, but still had a few written inspired either by the landscape or the fact that I had chosen to sit backwards so that I  left rather than arrived.

For Dad

That culvert
was built by convicts
its bricks burnt in kilns
Burnt on trees freed
from the brick-hard prison of earth
Goulburn, indeed Oz,
built on broken rocks
hardtime labour
Australia:
Dungeon of the world.

Once we were on the platform we read our poetry to the other train riders, a few Sydneysiders and a lot of uninterested passers-by.

That night fellow train traveller, CJ Bowerbird and I teamed up with my brother and his mates to discuss the copious amounts of cheap wine we drank before sleeping on my brothers floor.

Saturday I awoke earlier than sensible and penned a new poem throwing down the gauntlet to CJ Bowerbird, which I performed at the State Library of NSW.  Other notable poets performing included P.S Cottier (She of fellow Triptych fame), Hal Judge and Hazel Hall. The event was curatored by Kate Rees, one of Sydney's APL Cafe Poets.

That afternoon we traveled to the Friend In Hand Pub in Glebe for a special poetry slam Hosted by Jack Peck. CJ Bowerbird took the honours, and Hazel came second. By the end of the night (2 or 3 in the morning) we had crawled through several other pubs and found more friends along the way.

I awoke with less than an hour to get back to the city and catch my bus, only to watch my beloved Sharkies bundled (bungled) out of the NRL Finals by the ramapaging Raiders.

Poetry in Motion, I hereby declare you a success!

Next stop, Sydney

Todays the Poetry In Motion train that leaves Canberra for Sydney. I'll be joined by 24 other poets on a tin missile. while a-board the four hour trip, poets are to compose new works. Every hour on the hour we're to share our offerings, and those we deem worthy can be entered for consideration into  a chapbook to be published later.

There is to be a recital at central station and on Saturday poetry readings at the NSW State Library, and a special Canberra Poets Challenge slam held at A Friend In Hand pub in Glebe Saturday night (7 pm).

now I've gotta find my platform shoes, as i have a train to catch...

thats what platform shoes are for, right?

Book Launch Flyer!

Blemish Books have released the flyer for my book launch.

 See you there!

August Schmooze!

Part one of my artist residency with Schmooze saw me attend the 2012 business marketplace held at Rydges Lakeside, and the cocktail party held on the 15th floor overlooking the city and the lake.


The marketplace and cocktail party tastefully curated by Schmooze founder Phillip A. Jones.  As resident artist I was situated in the thick of the action, composing poetry live on my laptop and projected onto the wall of the cocktail party, listening to some sultry jazz.

All in all the night was a success, I wrote some poems,  which I guess are a lot like kittens; you keep the ones you like and drown the rest.

For Desiree

Thanks for my drinks card

my lips were dry

and i

fumbled my hello

other poems can be read here

Poetry in Motion

I have boarded the poetry train to Sydney.

Australian Poetry ltd have sponsored a train to Sydney thats going to be crammed to the gunnels with poets. There'll be slams and recitals and media and food. So i'm in. I like the concept, it reminds me of the Tragic Troubadours, our performances for the You Are Here Festival, taking poetry to  different places.

The word "gunnels" (actually gunwales) always makes me think of trains, and not boats. This is due to me reading Ahma Hoarss, Tom Leonard's brilliant phonetic translation of Jean Arp's Ich bin Ein Pferd which, for the non-germanic, Jean had helpfully self translated into Je suis un Cheval.

Ahma Hoarss

Ahm oan a train
packt ti thi gunnilz
ma comparmints fuhll
a wummin n vri seat
a man oan ivri wummins knee
helluva hoat
lik sumhm oot thi tropics
aw thi passengers
fuhlin thir faces
champin away
when thi men aw suddnly girn
they wahnt thir mammy's tit
wahnt thir feed
wahnt thir sook
the oapn thi wummins blouses
lift oot the diddies
sook away fur life
fuhll thimselz wi good fresh mulk
ahm thi only wan no breastfeedin
n naibodys sookn it me
n am no sittn oan emdy's knee
an naibdyz sittn oan mine
coz ahma hoarss
sitn straight up a hoarss
ma hinn legs
upnthi seat
leanin nice n comfy
oan ma front legs
nay bothir a nieeeei gh gh gh
oan ma breast six buttns
shiny sixy sex appeal
neat n a row
lik glossy buttns n a uniform
how toaty thi world
how mega its cherries

Loved you once

Just in case you've missed previous links to the demo of Martin Raynor and My  song Loved you once here is the soundcloud.

Martin is playing a gig at the Potbelly in Belconnen on the 24th of August, 9pm. Come along!

Canberra Poetry Slam August Slam or Scrambled

Friday the 31st sees Canberra's longest running poetry slam, The Canberra Poetry Slam host Slam or scrambled, the August edition.

Featuring Canberra's CJ Bowerbird, a no-holds barred open mike, the slam itself and a return to cash prizes, the night promises to be chockfull of entertainment

Hosted by Myself and the Flying V, the night will kick off with the open mike, a defining tradition of the Canberra Poetry Slam, and then the slam proper will start at 8.

Slam rules are simple, 3 minutes of your own composition, no musical accompaniment or props.

Join the Facebook Event here.

the night kicks off at 7:30, Front Cafe and Gallery, Lyneham

Schmooze Artist in Residency

Last week the business networking gurus at Schmooze appointed me to their 2012 Artist in Residence, a position that I was lucky enough to even be considered for.  The residency will last for three months, where i will compose and perform at various functions culminating in a charity auction where businesses can bid for my talents and funds raised will go to the Cerebral Palsy Alliance as a part of Schmooze founder's Everyday Hero charity work.

Details of my residency can be found on the Schmooze website here.

Book launch date released!

The date of the launch for Blemish Book's Triptych Poets #3 has been set for the 20th of September.

Triptych Poets is an annual publication that tries to "highlight the contrasting and complementary aspects in contemporary poetry" by selecting a collection of poems from three Australian poets.

Blemish Books is an independent press publishing an exciting high quality range of  books, essays and poetry from establishing and emerging writers. Triptych Poets #3 is my first collection, which i share with P.S. Cottier and Joan Kerr.

Launch details:
Blemish Books presents
Triptych Poets #3
20 September 6 pm
Paperchain Bookstore
34 Franklin Street Manuka

Scissors Paper Pen soundcast

A soundcast of a promotional interview for the launch of Triptych Poets #3 is now available online.
Conducted by blogger Duncan Felton for Scissors Paper Pen the soundcast contains two recorded poems "Once More" and "Two Dueling Love Poems For Phoebe", a brief interview and finishes with a demo of Martin Raynor performing our song "Loved You Once".

Both poems feature in Triptych Poets #3, where my collection of poems "Lovers and Brothers" is a third of the volume shared with Joan Kerr and another Canberran poet P.S. Cottier.  Triptych Poets is the third volume in a wonderful series produced by Blemish Books Independent Press, and is set for release in September.

Loved You Once is a song co written by me and Martin Raynor, and recorded in my living room. The plan is to build an EP of songs together, so stay tuned for more on that project.

To listen to the soundcast head to the Scissors Paper Pen page for an SPP event in audio miniature.
 

2 slams, 2 days.

Friday night saw the Canberra Poetry Slam host Jazz Slam!  A poetry and swing fusion conceptualised by regular host The Flying V (or The Swinging V... but i think that might be an adult site...) The night featured the jazz stylings of Canberran three piece the Kooky Fandango, and feature poet Andrew Galan. Both acts proved very capable of pulling a crowd, with poetry and music enthusiasts taking all available space in the venue (The Front Gallery and Cafe).

I was co-hosting and facilitating, the competitors providing a tightly packed range of scores. Two of Canberra Poetry Slam's most lauded poets took out first and second prize, being CJ Bowerbird and last years National Poetry Slam representative, Miranda Lello. Third place honours were won by Canberra Poetry Slam newcomer Nikesh. Prizes were donated by the good people at Burley Journal, Block Journal and Express Media.

The slam scene in Canberra continues to unearth new and young talent, this month  Gabriela Falzon stepped up with her poems of brazen teenage sexuality.

Overall the standout performer on the night was Varisht, his performance enhanced as he read his poetry with a previously unseen vigor over the top of the Kooky Fandango's funky shapes.

All in all it was a great night.


Saturday Night

I arrived at the Yours and Owls Poetry Slam unsure of what to expect.  Here was another funky gallery/bar that also served hot meals.

The slam was of exceptional quality despite it's infancy and was followed by an open mic session (and heavy drinking). The drinking was so heavy that while one related audience member had his wine glass filled, his chair fell through the floor.

My set lasted around 25 minutes. It received laughs, applause and gasps of shock horror, at mostly appropriate times.

The night was recorded by attending poet/scriptwriter Harrison Engstrom and a podcast is hosted on his blog which can be found here.

The pod cast features poems from Laura E Goodin and Lorin Reid, as well as a part recorded song from Mark Matic, Wollongong singer/songwriter.

Yours and Owls poetry tour!

Bringing the fire to the Dan O'Connell, July 2012

This Saturday sees me making the journey down to Wollongong for me to perform for the first time there.

The event is the Yours and Owls Poetry Slam, a relatively new event at a funky cafe/bar.

As guest performer I have prepared two set lists, two to horrify or enthrall, to woo or wound, but to always entertain, the event will feature some of my newer, and never been performed poems.


web info

Set List 1
My Breakfast Had a Face
Nothing Can Stop the Blow(job) When it Lands
Human Caviar
I Dream of Fidelity
3 Rings
Songbird
Your Grandfather
Higgs-Boson (performed at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! 18/7/2012)
In Heaven

Set List 2
What brings Me to poetry
an introduction
Kali (performed 7/7/2012)
Raphael Kabo's Newtown
Phoebe's Five Dollar Poem
Of Deserts and Dingoes
Still
Hierophant and the Worm
Stroke
For Evelyn (premier!)
This is a poem...

Canberra Poetry Slam - Jazz Slam!

This month, Canberra's longest running poetry slam will blend swing music and poetry on the 27th of July. The venue is the Front Cafe and Gallery in Lyneham.

The Slam begins with an open mic, so if you feel competition cramps your style or your poetry doesn't suit the guidelines, still come along and share.

The Jazz Slam will feature a 3 piece swing band who will entertain the audience and provide introduction music for the competitors.

The Feature Poet of the night is Canberran poetry superstar, Andrew Galan, who has had numerous poems published in varied journals, books and anthologies, but is better known as the founder of Canberra's rival slam Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit!. his blog can be found here.

The slam rules:
poem must be your own
no props, musical accompaniment
Less than 3 minutes long

The Poetry Slam is brought to you by two hosts, Varisht Gosain (otherwise known as the Flying V) and myself and of course the good people of the Front Cafe and Gallery.

Canberra Poetry Slam in BMA

The Canberra Poetry Slam received a good write-up in the BMA,  something that i feel impelled to promote because i'm mentioned (in the same sentenced as "filled with rotting innards" and "least offensive").  Check it out. the article penned by Canberra band Waterford's heart-throb and Ahmadinejad look-alike, Pete Huet, and mentions a good cross section of the Canberra slam poetry scene.

http://www.bmamag.com/articles/uninhibited/20120703-uninhibited/

Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! Tonight!!!

Canberra's institutionalised poetry slam again hits the stage at the phoenix pub tonight.
B!S!N!B! promises all the usual mad-cappery with 5 first prizes (FIVE!).

Tonight's line-up includes the a-musically gifted Canberra funny man Rafe Morris
and multiple chances to die with Canberra's slam poetry pioneer Julian Fleetwood's Choose Your Own Zombie Adventure!

Hosted by Andrew Galan and the Master of Conflict B!S!N!B! is open for everyone over 18, poets are given 2 minutes, must be your own writing, no props/music. Sign up begins at 7:30, Phoenix Pub, East Row, which is in the Civic bus interchange.

Catch my incoherent ramble on the antithesis of the Higs-Boson as i compete for your attention!

Poetry at the Dan

Saturday! 2-5pm. Featuring yours truly on his one show only tour of melbyhole.

Melbourians: light your fire brands and sharpen your pitchforks! there's a-doings a-happening.

@ the Dan O'Connell Hotel in Carlton

$$$ Earn Money Contract Killing $$$

I am preparing myself for unemployment and answering want ads.

Having recently met another 33.33333 of "my" book,  Australian  poet PS Cottier, I sought out alternative means of making money.

a quick trip to the hardware store and i'm prepared for my new career.

A Shopping list:
large black plastic garbage bags - Check
petrol - Check
shovel - Check
string - Check
disposable gloves - Check
hair net (or shower cap) - Check (shower cap)
apron - Check
bleach - Check
builder's lime - Check
Duct tape for mouth and nostrils - check

Cotter Poem

The following  is lifted from the Greening Australia Capital Region newsletter (May 18)
My thanks again to Greening Australia, the Canberra Centenary (Canberra100), Hal Judge from Australian Poetry Limited and all the volunteers on the day who planted trees and the seeds of this poem.


Cotter Poem
    At the recent Centenary of Canberra planting, local poet Josh Inman gathered words and impressions from volunteers as they worked. With this content, he composed two poems; below is one of them.

      

Cotter. May 6, 2012             
     Joshua Inman
     
     
     Building Biodiversity from blisters and blackberries
     planting trees
                            returning fertility
                to the sterility of fire
     
     a community
                       Growing  from its ashes
     sections of society rallying beneath a banner
     relating
                   regenerating
     for future generations
     
     No longer just taking but giving back
     to the Bush Capital's backyard
     the 'kebab trees'
               clay soil
                       ground cover
                                     Hard yakka
     carbon sinking
         catchment cleaning
     
     restoring the burnt biota
       healing the hurt Cotter

Poems of mine to be published

Blemish Books, an independent press located here in Canberra have announced this years contributors  to Triptych Poets.

I am excited to say that I  have been selected as one of the contributors, which will be the first publication of my works.

Triptych Poets is an annual publication with a simple premise, three poets, one book. Triptych Poets hopes to highlight the contrasting and often complementary nature of contemporary poetry.
Submissions for a suite of 25 poems or less  closed in March this year. I submitted 25 poems collectively entitled "Lovers and Brothers", a nod to those who the poems are written about or for, or inspired by. After all, my poems are little pieces of me and we are all pieces of those we love.

Triptych Poets  is set for release in Sept 2012 

This announcement can be read here:
http://www.blemishbooks.com.au/news/index.shtml

Performing at Greening Australia

Sunday 6 May - Centenary of Canberra planting event
Proudly hosted by the Centenary of Canberra Project

Plant a seedling at the Centenary of Canberra and Greening Australia community tree planting day and learn from Yurung Dhaura trainees some of the traditional aboriginal uses for the trees, grasses and shrubs being planted as part of the Lower Cotter rehabilitation project.
Be entertained by Love Sick Caravan - Canberra’s newest dixie-land band who will bring a touch of yesteryear to the Cotter. In addition, spoken word artist and poet Josh Inman, from Australia Poetry Limited, has accepted the challenge to perform a new work created on the day by seeking words from planters about the Lower Cotter region.

When?
Sunday 6 May, 9.30am – 12.30pm. Followed by a BBQ.
What to expect?
Indigenous knowledge sharing, music, poets, a BBQ, a few blackberry canes and a portaloo.
Please bring a hat, sunscreen, long sleeves, long pants, gardening gloves,
sturdy boots, mattock (if you have one) and a water bottle.
Catch the bus?
RSVP Essential! The bus departs the City West bus terminal on Marcus Clarke
St (between University Ave and Allsop St) at 8.30am, and will then pick up
at 9am from the Stromlo Forest Park cycling area car park off Uriarra Rd.
The bus will return to Stromlo, then Civic by 2:30pm.
Driving?
Drive along Uriarra Rd to Uriarra Crossing, turn left after the Crossing and
continue on Uriarra road for 7km. Turn left into Bullock Paddock Road. Look
out for the Greening Australia signs from Uriarra Crossing.
RSVP Essential:
Please state if you will be catching the bus or not.
Phone: 6253 3035. Email: admin@act.greeningaustralia.org.au
You  don’t  need  any experience to attend a Greening Australia event,
instructions and tools are provided on site.
If you have any questions, please contact us on admin@act.greeningaustralia.org.au or 6253 3035
Check out the volunteer page here for other volunteering opportunities.

Selection Criteria

So it acomes to a time where I have to make an effort  to retain some form of employment. The problem is i find myself bored with official writing that just so biege.  heres my latest selection criterion:

Working with People - Understanding others, adapting to others, rewarding others, listening, consulting, supporting, caring.

I work with people. I am a People Person, proven by the crowd of people who posed for this picture

I have extensive experience working within a team environment throughout my career.  As a warm and open person, I possess an understanding of others. This empathy is the glue that binds the team, or the egg that binds the rissole. It is the power of this affinity that I wield that allows me to be the greatest team member ever. In my self appointed role as morale team captain I command the respect of my minions by adapting to some, rewarding others and listening to all. A team with harmony sings in simpatico. Some lesser team members say im condescending (that means I speak down to people), but it’s not true, I am just greater than they could ever hope to achieve. And this is how I relate to people, I give them my time, and time is money, so it’s like a charity. And that’s what I am, friend charity.  Building a rapport is different to building a house, but both have glue. I am that glue.

Otherwise, i once busked with a sign that read
Too lazy to work or sing, please give generously

so i always have my backup career.

An Autumn Poemn

Autumn

all the girls,
          fuck,
Even the trees
discard their clothes
and show poets
their bushes.

You were here. The festival that was

The You Are Here festival wrapped up with the showcase of Canberran poetry, "Poetry is The Real Winner", hosted by fellow Tragic Troubadour, Andrew Galan.

The Tragic Troubadours had a busy schedule performing to the milling populace as they waiting for buses, doing eight one hour sessions over four days, capturing a new audience(some of whom didnt know there was a festival on and others who couldnt believe we weren't begging/busking).

Drawing in a new audience is the ethos of You Are Here, which spotlights the culture of experimental art in Canberra, and though biased, I believe the Troubs achieved this with their ambush style poetry to greater extent than any of the other acts. 

That said, saturday events like the secret gig and Going To Hell In This Handy Basket drew (willing) crowds to the newsroom that included people of all ages, and proven performer Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! had the phoenix bar packed to the gunnels.

What I read coming out of the festival is that it was a massive success, far surpassing the runaway results of YAH 2011, which can only auger well for YAH 2013

Poem within the Mall Stories walking tour at the You Are Here festival

Mall Stories is a crowd-sourced walking tour for the Canberra Centre conceptualised by Canberra poet and creative type, Julian Fleetwood.

A mixture of prose, poems and a few songs, the Mall Stories are available for download to listen to on your electronic device, be it a smart phone or iphone (crapple).

I have written one piece, The (de)Escalators At The Food Court, and read two amusing ancedotes.

Mall Stories is a part of the You Are Here festival, which is running in Canberra the 8th - 18th of March

Tragic Troubadours at You Are Here Festival

Everybody's favourite poetry troupe will be ambushing commuters within the Civic bus interchange as a part of the You Are Here Festival.

The festival aims at showcasing the independent experimental arts culture within Canberra. Often this culture grows in dank and unused corners and the festival brings this into light within public spaces and the creative reuse of vacant retail shopfronts.

The troubadours start holding the dirty syringe of experimental poetry to the necks of commuters on the 13th of March

The Tragic Troubadours at Corinbank

The Tragic Troubadours are set to perform their poems and short plays around the venues of the Corinbank Music and Arts festival, held this weekend in the Brindabellas.

with a line up described as "new and dynamic" by this blog (in this article) they will be performing a selection of new and classic material which they have been compiling since their last appearance (2010 National Folk Festival).

Be prepared for more madness from these love-lorn Lotharios which has previously seen them helped off stage under escort following the infamous Bob Hoskins at the Majestic.