30 August 2008

WA Poetry Festival 2008

But the WA poetry festival is here. 2008 WA Spring Poetry Festival and National Poetry Week events - brought to you by WA Poets Inc. Events running from 29 AUGUST - 7 SEPTEMBER 2008. This year the fest has been scaled back but there's lots of stuff on - including National Poetry Week events.

There's a basic program online here: thewordisout.net.





OPENFACE 08

I'm putting together an event for the festival on the 30th AUGUST.

OPENFACE 08 - Performance Poetry Action on Saturday 30th August 2008, Kaos Room at Blue Room in the Perth Cultural Centre, Northbridge.


CLICK HERE FOR FLYER for this event.

20 August 2008

Blac Blocs CD Launch

My rock band - Blac Blocs is launching a 7 track CD this Saturday at the Hyde Park Hotel Frontbar.

We recorded and mixed it ourselves over the last few months. Adem K and Laurie Sinagra mastered it.

"Blac Blocs, Perth's freshest direct-action dirt-rockers are currently recording their much awaited debut 7 track CD.

Formed in early 2007, the subversive and boisterous 4 piece have since graced the stages of most Perth original band venues - as well as solid backyard touring schedule with multiple encounters with the WA Police.

Supporting the likes of Melbourne's Witch Hats, Black Level Embassy, Curse ov Dialect, Elf Tranzporter and too many local acts over the last year, the boys are sphincter-tight and ready to spit bits with the best bitches.

Described as "Midnight Oil meets Fugazi", Blac Blocs' unique hard-edged post-punk sound and complaint-rock poetics have been captured for consumption on a CD to be released on August 23rd at the Hyde Park Hotel Frontbar..."

There's a myspace and a band website.

13 August 2008

overload-2008-antipoet

Overload Poetry Festival -August 2008

Overload festival was a cool blast - again. Was the quickest trip to Melbourne I've done, with only 2 gigs to do over the weekend. This was my 4th Overload festival and the weather was sharp, cold and gun-grey snap. As usual the Melbourne sun is nothing more than theoretical. But this is always more than made for by the warmth and generosity of the Melbourne poetry scene inhabitants.

After teaching my creative writing class very early on Friday morning, then playing a blistering Blac Blocs set on Friday night (image above) at the Rocket room in Perth, I arrived utterly exhausted at Melbourne Airport on Saturday night.

Following a rambling, frenetic poetry/art discussion over some wicked rogan josh and Japanese beers in Fitzroy with long-time performance partner (hyper-impro-singer-poet) Ashley J Higgs, then much later over one Bacardi and Coke with my good mate Steve Smart, I finally crashed in the wee hours of Sunday morn.

Consequently, I performed tired and sparsely at the J Studios (a very cool converted primary school/artspace in North Fitzroy) at midday on Sunday. Benito De Fonzo from Sydney and Nathan Shepherdson from Brisbane also performed at this event - an interstate showcase entitled: "Rave."

Benito, who I've seen many times before was in good form with his bunch of always entertaining post-journalistic poetry. Nathan was also in good form with several short works involving a kind of surreal ode to spoons and full stops. Good stuff. Love to hear more of Nathan's work.

The cold but brightly lit performance space was hung with the works of an international stencil art/poetry exhibition, and as a stencil-artist, it was a buzz to read poetry amongst some fine examples of poetry meets spray collaboration. Inspiring art.

I opened with a spoken version of Refused's NEW NOISE, a seminal post-punk/hardcore song, did the Superuser poem, Consume and Heroin before testing out a brand new piece (this microphone) to a small but appreciative mob...

The other show was later on the Sunday evening "surprise showcase" - the final festival event.

I was scheduled as the final act, which meant a lot of waiting to perform - with many (perhaps too many) Carlton Draughts consumed freezingly al-fresco - before I finally got in front of the packed and eager audience.

The night's organisers, Steve Smart, and Maurice McNamara had chosen a fine selection of festival performers and open-section stars, with a micro-slam embedded into the event. A diverse and dynamic night indeed.

The venue (Dante's - Gertrude Street in Fitzroy) was microphone-less, but has great acoustics for poetry - even with the more quieter poets.

Ashley J Higgs, who I've performed with since the late 90s collaborated on my last piece: this microphone (see post below) - which I'd mostly written on the plane the night before. In order to put myself on the edge a little, to this Overload I had brought nothing but a notepad - no laptop, no backing CD, no gadgets, nothing.

Ash, who is a master of site-specific improvisation used chair-scrape percussion, strange mobile-phone recordings, some uber-vocal-musings and finally a wooden barrel, culminating in a frenzy of mad acoustic beats and words. Was a lot of fun and had some great responses - including one woman who "hated" my Heroin piece. (The poem is a repetitive "You can't buy much heroin for a dollar" with emphasis on a different words as the sentence is spoken).

After the gig, much festival chattery and many many many refreshments later (til the magpies spoke dawn tunes), I awoke a frazzled-nasty-hazy heap on a lounge in a random Melbourne poet-house on the Monday morning, then crawled to the airport...

A very rapid and rampant couple of days.

There a bunch of good photos of both events on Michael Reynolds facebook: link here.

Thanks go out to all involved.

12 August 2008

this microphone

and i wish i was writing this poem without arms
if only to feel yr economic reality
my permanent latex phallacy
touching the roof of yr potent mouth
a violent tapestry of idiosyncratic verbosity
a hitleresque salute of olympic proportions

foot stamp hard down on the rubber
of distortion pedal
an overdriven eyepatch
like a glistening donkey
or a blistering monkey
gathering AIDS and weary simpsons
for a new kinda jesus
one with metal spikes for eyes
a tobacco lawyer on roids
wishing it was 1968 again

and we sold each others' golden gestures
a heartfelt grab for a battered penis
an umbrella-shaped vagina
and all this time on this second cycle

this microphone
this microphone
this microphone
this mic

telling a thousand lyrical stories
of drunken poets and werds eaten in teams
of very dead writers and dread-locked drinkers
of shaven-headed 6AM tag-fuckers
using my rigid cock as a screwdriver
a texta never bending my body forward enough
yet yr thumb deep inside me
up to this knuckle

this microphone
this microphone
this microphone
this mic

and at the 3rd stroke i'm swallowing it whole
neither of us really understanding
our former facebook-selves now
my pink avatar a token for Allah
being remembered for scratching obscenities in glass
a swollen river of the drinking-class
this poised an..ti..ci..pa..tion..
as we wait for a new bad song
a new shit poem
a brand gnu meme-screamin crockpot genie
but that's all there is

from this microphone

this microphone
this microphone
this microphone
this mic...

--

allan boyd - antipoet
11 August 2008

performed at J-Studios and Dantes

2008 Overload Poetry Festival, Melbourne

04 August 2008

Melbourne OVERLOAD Poetry Festival 2008

overloadpoetry.com

I'm a guest again at the OVERLOAD 2008 Poetry Festival - 1st – 10th August 2008 MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA...

I have 2 booked performances on SUNDAY 10 AUG - one around 1230pm at J Studios - and on SUNDAY NIGHT in the Closing Party at Dantes at about 830.

Should be a blast as usual. Always inspirational.

Download the PDF progm here...

Teaching at Curtin Uni

I just started a new casual teaching position at Curtin University, where I studied in the 90s. The course is Creative Writing 211 - Experimental Writing. We're using Hazel Smith's The Writing Experiment. Great book. Gonna be a fun unit. (Also tutoring CW 112)