Sweetalkers presents ANTHROPOETRY: The Players (08/03/2013)

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At Sweetalkers next Tuesday, these are the people I'll be trying to squeeze ten dollars worth of poetry out of for you...

BEN MELLOR

Ben Mellor is a UK writer, performer and poet who has performed at theatres and international festivals, garnering critical acclaim wherever he goes. He won BBC Radio 4’s National Poetry Slam 2009 and the Dike Omeje Slam Poetry Award 2008. He has had poems and short stories published by Corporate Watch, Inc. Magazine, Poetry Review and Route and his first full length collection, with accompanying spoken word album – both titled Light Made Solid – were published by Flapjack Press in 2010/11.

Anthropoetry is Ben’s first full-length spoken word show, and his third solo show after the critically acclaimed theatre pieces ‘Voices of Dissent’ (Contact) and Everything We Need (Royal Exchange/ Dartington), both part of the Changing Cycles Project – “Mellor is astounding in his performance” **** The Public Reviews.

Dan and Ben began working together on Voices of Dissent and the two have continued to collaborate on various theatre, music and spoken word projects over the years. They are currently also playing together in a band called Geddes Loom, which also features the singing, songwriting and ‘cello talents of Léonie Higgins.

The Big Chill Campfire Sessions: Ben Mellor
(if you are not seeing a playable YouTube window above click (here)

DAN STEELE

Dan Steele has been playing music since an early age, starting out on the Piano, and taking up the guitar at around 12, but regrettably giving up on piano at the same time, although he likes to tinkle the ivories again these days.  He has played in bands for most of the time since learning guitar, some have been better than others.

Dan works as sound engineer, composer and sound designer for theatre.  Has a solo project producing electronic music, often using found sounds as well as often working in collaboration with other artists.  He has been working in theatre since leaving school, initially as a sound engineer, and later finding himself working as Sound Designer for various projects.  Composing professionally came later as for a long time writing music was something he did only for himself.

(below: Ben and Dan doin' their thing together on stage)

Dan and Ben began working together on Voices of Dissent and the two have continued to collaborate on various theatre, music and spoken word projects over the years. They are currently also playing together in a band called Geddes Loom, which also features the singing, songwriting and ‘cello talents of Léonie Higgins.

BRIOHNY DOYLE

Randall has somehow managed to convince award winning Australian writer Briohny Doyle to return to the spoken word stage to slum it with us poets yet again. A ”scholar of the apocalypse” she has written for Ampersand Magazine, Going Down Swinging, Overland, Cordite, Voiceworks, The Lifted Brow and all over the internet.

Briohny has taken the stage at the Cockatoo Island Festival, The State Library of NSW, The Melbourne Writer’s Festival, The National Young Writer’s Festival, The Overload Poetry Festival and The Wheeler Centre for Books and Ideas with everything from room stopping spoken word to XXX fan porn. She’s been commissioned to write performance work from the Sydney Festival, The Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, The Red Room Poetry Company and the Sydney Writer’s Festival.

Have a squizz at her website: http://briohnydoyle.com/

To check out podcasts of Briohny's spoken word (sound edited by yours truly) go to: 

http://www.wordplay.org.au/podcasts/december-2009/

EMILY ANDERSEN

Emily Andersen is an Australian poet who lives in Melbourne (and sometimes London), whose work is inspired by the themes of pop music, politics and place. Emily was mentored by the late Dorothy Porter between 2004 and 2005, and made her Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in 2012 with her one-woman spoken word show Love in the Key of Britpop.

She has performed her poetry on the BBC 6 Music breakfast show, as well as at spoken word events in the UK and Australia, and at Fringe World in Perth and Adelaide Fringe. Emily previously wrote, produced and performed in plays for her former company the Union Players, and was General Manager of young writers’ organisation Express Media between 2007 and 2010. As well as writing, her passions include activism, community cultural development, psycho-geography, the Fitzroy Football Club, and pop and indie music, particularly Britpop, the Beatles and Morrissey.

...and your MC for the night is:

RANDALL STEPHENS 

(hey y'know what? I just rewrote this bio for a couple of submissions that probably won't ever see the light of day, so here is...)

A Melbourne-based performance poet who combines humorous and personal writing with an energetic delivery style to create a strong stage presence.  His work in concerned with masculine identity, romance and relationships, eroticism, travel, sustainable living, the experience of urban cyclists, people who annoy him, and dinosaurs.  Randall has toured his poetry extensively in Australia with his first spoken word album Product, as well as in New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia and Borneo, competed in poetry slams in New York and London.

His work has been broadcast on RRR and 3CR in Melbourne, and published by erotic fiction label Little Raven, as well as in Australian Poetry’s online journal Sotto.  Together with filmmaker Alex Scott, Randall won the Queensland Poetry Festivals Filmmakers’ Challenge in 2011, for their collaboration on an animated poetry film “I Statements”.

 Randall serves as Vice President of the Melbourne Poets Union, and is currently writing a book of gonzo-poetry about his work with Asylum Seekers entitled “The Gated Community”. In 2013 Randall and long-time collaborator Steve Smart will also be releasing “Fuck These Guys” a series of chapbooks collecting their work on their hang ups about women and sex. 

He also hates re-writing his bio, and has vowed not to do so again for a while. 



oh and the bloody venue....

John Curtin Hotel, 29 Lygon Street, directly opposite Trades Hall. (it looks exactly like the above photo)

(and almost exactly the same at this photo below)

http://www.johncurtinhotel.com

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So, I guess it's C U Next Tuesday...

-Peace

Sweetalkers presents ANTHROPOETRY -this Tuesday March 12th

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Ladies and gentlemen, we're back...

Tomas Ford, a good friend of mine in Perth, wrote Steve Smart and I earlier this year recommending we check out a spoken word fringe act he'd seen over there called Anthropoetry by two travelling UK artists, and maybe try help set them up with a gig over here.

Tomas, himself one of the most daring, imaginative and confronting performers in Australia (peered I think only by, say David Stavanger, Adam Hadley or the mighty Emilie Zoey Baker), anyway Tom to a certain extent shares my ambivalence and impatience with elements of the spoken word scene, thus is not given to make these calls lightly. That immediately got my attention.

I'd love to say I was looking for an excuse to bring Sweetalkers back, because I always enjoy lying to people.  However because the window was closed on all the other gigs around town, and because I'm at heart just a fan of good, rich spoken word performance myself, I realized this was my, I mean our only chance to see this thing performed in Melbourne.

So, as a Melbourne exclusive event, we're very excited to be presenting you Anthropoetry. So excited in fact that we made a poster, no kidding, look, look!

ANTHROPOETRY is a musical journey around the human anatomy, infused with hip-hop, science and comedy , inspired by anthropometry, the study of measuring the human body. Exploring modern life through the lens of archaic quack medicine and hokey beliefs, UK (BBC R4) slam champion Ben Mellor delivers a social and political commentary at once searingly topical and deeply personal.

Created in collaboration with Dan Steele, a multi-instrumentalist and sound designer, the synergy between Ben’s blend of free-verse poetry, rap, beatbox and satirical humour and Dan’s subtle but emphatic use of guitar, keys, drumpads and live-looping technology, has earned the show 4-star reviews and audience acclaim at this year’s Adelaide Fringe Festival, and at the Edinburgh Fringe, where it was first performed in 2012.

We've been getting nothing short of a barrage of message and comments from people from Perth and Adelaide since I announced this event on Facebook, and while that means a lot more to me that critics reviews, let's look at some of these too (out of Edinburgh):



 ‘Elegantly crafted rhymes… always engaging’ 
  **** (The Scotsman)

‘A fine body of verse… vitally affirms poetry as a spoken medium… a joy to listen to.’
 **** (Broadway Baby)

‘Slick poetry set to music, and a particularly impressive political and lyrical bent’ 
 **** (Sabotage Reviews) 

‘A talent and attitude that makes him one of the most intriguing spoken word artists out there…
Mellor and Steele provide a formidable double act… the synergy between poet and musician is key’

**** (The Flaneur)


I've been listening to the accompanying album over and over since Ben sent gave me a copy. If you'd like to listen for what you're in for, check it out at:  http://www.benmellor.bandcamp.com

But wait there's more, I've also lined up two amazing support acts for the show, in the persons of Briohny Doyle and Emily Anderson, both of whom are old-school poets, neither of whom have been seen gracing our stages in years, and both of them we'll be excited to see in equal measure. But I'll tell you more about that, them, Ben, Dan in the next blog...

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-Peace
















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We're getting in the Dan -Saturday February 16th

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I'm nervous. Tomorrow for the first time in over two years, I'm performing my first featured-reading at one of Melbourne's regular poetry gigs. I had consciously avoided doing these gigs since then, or going to them altogether for that matter, finding the afternoons/evenings pretty hard to get through generally, even as a spectator.

The quality of the work tends to be pretty uninspiring, and the people there very insular. Something  you invariably end up (having to) apologise for dragging your friends along to.

With previous features I did 2009-2010, as a newly-arrived performance poet, I became increasingly frustrated that the levels of innovation, theme and novelty I was bringing to each new gig (from narrative links, to duets, covers) were being met with indifference or even worse still, open hostility.

However, what I had forgotten over that time is, as much as the open mike slots themselves, what an immense opportunity these gigs can give you, as a canvas to try out a whole slew of new work, in a fairly low-risk setting.

So somewhere between certain die hard open-mike regulars trying to weed tall-poppy out from the grass roots, and me just being an arrogant cock, I figure tomorrow will be a good chance to flex a few muscles I haven't used in a while, and try out a cross section of different material.



I get accused frequently of only going online/on facebook to promote stuff, which I don't choose to wear ~ for the record, the bulk of my activity is posting inconsequential tweets, photos, re-posting other poets' news and lots of inane commentary.

But it's me flashing big-push for events like this that seems to stick out in people's minds, and form their lasting impression, which for my money only serves to reveal how little pride most people take in discussing/promoting their own work.

I mean, in standing up and saying "OI! YOU! YOU LIKE STUFF? YEAH COME LOOK AT ME THEN. YAY!" versus not having the courage/confidence/chutzpah  to invite people to come share your art, of those two parties, I ask you, which indeed is the one that needs to get over itself?

I guess because it's self promotion it seems more crass, inauthentic and egotistical. At this point I'm supposed to have either found people/organisations/publishers etc to back me, or just pipe down, admit defeat and give in to some flagrantly-false modesty, while player hating with all the jealously you can glare into someone's back.

Well... not yet. I'm still here, still believe I have something utterly unique-yet-universal to say that's worth the time-taken of yours to share it. I got something you might like to hear. Tomorrow, we're gonna have a ball.


-Randall Stephens
February 15th, 2013



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....and shameless promo follows in 3,2- 






He’s been called “The Michael Caine of spoken word” by Geoff Lemon, referred to as “a rock star poet with daddy issues” by Anna Fern. John Garret has said “I just can’t understand why anyone likes him”. Cam Black once called him “flaccid, two-dimensional and insincere”

Shane Koyczan’s been quoted as saying “That guy should really be more careful what he says about people”

Les Murray on the other hand, has never heard of him, but they once glared at each other across the buffet table at the Newcastle Poetry Prize ceremony. Les blinked first.

His name is RANDALL STEPHENS. He is a poet –laureate chip on the shoulder of the Australian poetry community. He's gotten too big for his boots, and he's got feet covered in broken egg shells. He's got hands covered in cheap jewelry, and he's gotten his hands dirty getting here. He's got a big fucking mouth, and he ain't afraid to use it.


...Yeah, you should all come along tomorrow.  You'll hate it of course, but at least you'll have more ammunition this way.

-Peace

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I Love You. Today.

(February 14th 2013)
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tried to send her
the whole of Valentine’s day
through the email

it ended messily
my sweet lines just wouldn't
-scan
computer melted in chocolate
rose petals stuck in my teeth
sentiment under my nails


and hallmarks all over my face.






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-Peace











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Y'brought two wheels too many -10/02/2013

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my friend half-mockingly asks me
after my lament on the right of cyclists
if we consider ourselves
a marginalized section of society

absolutely we are,  I reply
pointing to the bike lane
cum-parking zone


clearly and exactly showing where that margin lies



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-Peace










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Tautology For Beginners -09/02/2013

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hand on shoulder
daydream interrupted
by a smiling face
and altruistic eyes
hovering over my table

"don't look so serious"

the words lunge at me
my eyes bolt beady from his
clue hunting in the wild
amongst the thick of cafe tables
desperate to know
what my face was doing
to warrant this attention

    (must have been something bad)

averted eyes and blank faces
from other patrons
surreptitiously watching us

   (yeah, must have been really bad)

there's a calm concern
deep ease emanating for this dude
that really freaks me out

our two faces tango over the table
the smiles I try forming
to reassure him
trip over every word
trying to leave my mouth
each stumble between question and excuse
and land in the air as
'aaahhhh-mmmmm-yyyy-wwwwwwwww"

he retreats with a thumb-up
taking his serene disposition
off down the street
leaving me to glare
desperate pleas of innocence
into his back

the afternoon is drowning
in deep misunderstandings
before this


I thought I was having a nice day









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-Peace















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Don't Starve The Artist -06/02/2013

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My brother in law calls
to tell me not to worry
that even if it meanders through
dole diaries and empty fridges
to keep following my own path
one he helped start me on
as a child

introducing me to Henry Rollins
Public Enemy, BDP, Ice T
and Arthur C Clarke
showing me Scorsese films
Lawrence of Arabia
the one-way swim in Gattaca

...and that cool way you should wear your sneakers

an endlessly lecturing
surrogate father
smartarse older brother
who taught me
when to rebel
when to listen
when to fight
and when to run

who helped a teenage boy
divide coolness from fashion
strength from force
size from substance
and price from a thing's value

and in years on
told a young man
to fucken shape up
remember his roots
to miss his family when away
instead of just always missing
their birthdays
and the older we got
the further we diverged

with every step he took towards
being the conservative greek father
he always wanted to be
I skulked farther and faster
down the road of the radical
childless careerless
anti-social artist

and now after years
of walls between us
built narrow and straight
he tells me finally
not to worry
don't starve the artist
that while there's nothing wrong
with how his own
family-man path unfolded,

that while this world already has
plenty of plumbers
anxious social workers
and tram drivers like him,
it has far too few
possessed enough
lucky or crazy enough
to follow their own dreams

he says down the phone
that he's proud of me
says he's come to be amazed
that people like me
can put words out into the air

trying to inspire
to change the way
we all think

this might be worse paid
but he believes now
it's still a better place
for me to be

less gifted than the gifts I get
my throat clenches up rock
the phone much heavier now
and I can't get tears out the way
for all my fancy ways of phrase
to tell him simply
as the simple way he said it...



just how much hearing his words mean to me




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-Peace

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Drapetomaniacs -04/02/2013

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people are more interested in protecting the rules

than the rules are in protecting people

____________________

(Regarding the title: yeah look I usually hate willfully/obscure references myself, but in this instance, what the hell, I figure y'all got y'browsers open... go google 'drapetomania' and have some fun joining your own dots)

-Peace

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Almost Mostly -03/02/2013

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drowning my tongue
in dumb questions
you already answered

preemptive replies
written almost honestly
all over our skin

I sink finally
into silence

wishing I’d learned to read your back better






_______________________________







-Peace








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The Blemish on Musgrave Park -January 26th 2013

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Sorry
I had to demolish your tent embassy
Just before Christmas
couldn’t let you
enshrine my indifference
over the holidays

what’s the problem?
we already got a day
to do that

I recognised your right to exist
like forty five years ago
stopped stealing your children
not long after that
mostly

I apologised four years back
recognised your fifty thousand years
in the last twenty
what's the problem with that?

why are you trying to make me feel bad
about things
I have

why we are we still even talking about this
why use words like peace
it’s not like I ever declared war on you
more than a handful of times

can’t you get over it
can’t you be more like me
can't you keep things tidy
can’t you stop crying
can’t you stop bleeding
can’t you get out the way
can’t you just
go
somewhere else
again

I’m trying to have a barbecue here



what's the problem with that?

____________________________

I love my country enough

that I have to believe

it can withstand the truth about itself

I'm not out celebrating today

I'd like to say it's in solidarity

with my few indigenous friends

and all the great people I've me and worked with

over the years

but you'd smell bullshit on me

and hypocrisy can leave some real nasty stains

I'm just too hungover

-Peace











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Underneath Their Feet -20/01/2013

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we are down there
out of bounds

where we truly
own our own shadows
and can't fall any further
from grace
than the dark gives us

over-a-fence escapism
underneath your feet
tunnel-vision

we are 
safely beyond regulation
beyond your sanity
sanitised ease of access
or creature comforts

we are down there
beyond those you have bought
sold
or otherwise kept
under your control
we are instead
below your control

exploring what's there
out of your grasp
and carrying our torches


so you can't keep us in the dark

___________________









-Peace










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When I grow up I want to be a new year -14/01/2013

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last year
I was asked to play the part of myself
for a TV show
and somehow did a bad job of that

last year filled with fear
until it spilt over
into a hospital room
where no one came to visit
except my demons

they didn't bring flowers

collecting injuries
double column indignities
last year I went into red
counting out who owes me
what I've done for them
and all I did
was make myself
additionally miserable

last year looked a bad boss
dead in his eye and said
go fuck yourself

lost that job
the way you lose keys
lose track of time
or lose your patience

I found love
the L word at last
then lost that too
somehow it slipped off
by trying to hold on
to all that unwashed anger
and heavy resentments
carried the long-distance
we crossed to find each other

last year
I tried flirting with disaster
til she called me creepy
and slapped me in the face
hard

2012 was a long story
heart strung-out
teeth first foul mouthed
going down the wrong way
and it sucked

because I let it
had an attitude too small for it
shrunk inside starving off
my unswallowed pride

last year
as my body struggled to heal
under haemophiliac inhibition
and clots of half arse career sit-in
three hundred and sixty five suns
fired warning shots across the sky
cautioning for me to look up
to uncloud my judgement

stop trying to use
internal bruises
to prove external causes
to stop being half a poet
and stop burning bridges
over the holes I dug myself into

to stop trying to act like myself

so I dug deeper
found the map back
buried below all my mistakes
directions written
on the back of the calendar
in my own bad handwriting
mis-spelling out
that we most always
can mark a path forward
month by month
from our mistakes

followed it through
to find her there
she'd been waiting
for me to grow
up
and out of that hole

it was December thirty first
got there soon as I could
she took my hand
and we busted out
of last year
like a jail break
saying, this year


let's make it better.

______________________












-Peace.











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The Rest Assured -10/01/2013

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know it seems strange to you
to live so much inside things I write
then dispose of online

for what it's worth
I don't see much sense
In the ways your life is lived
either

my silence feels fictional
from the inside
a strangleheld scream
not to be buried alive
in another lost moment

I'm chasing after truth
even if to you
it looks like I'm trying to bite
my own left ear

don't have the smarts it takes
to be less vulnerable
I think out loud
in dumb questions
and wrong answers

and only afraid in public
so I don't have to be

in private

___________
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-Peace.

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no you are -09/01/2013

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Used to argue with my father
'cause it was the only way
we could actually connect

beginning to wonder now
if this isn't becoming true
of how I relate
to everybody else

so if I don't bite back at you
it's not out of diplomacy
or born from some hard-found wisdom
not because I'm a nice guy

I just don't have anything to invest in you

and I might be poorer for that
not sure

economy isn't my strong suit

...just ask Dad.

_________________
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Well, with my over-arching (and always slighty pretensious) end of year poem still stubbornly refusing to finish itself, today I figured I'd just sticky tape a bunch if tweets together, and get 2013 rolling here.

This seems an appropriately inappropriate way begin. 'Mad quixotic hubris' ...see I waited all last year to have an excuse yo use that phrase. Never came up. Typical 2012 bullshit. So glad you and your Mayan prophecies are out if my life.

-Peace.

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Randy talking Bike Poetry on 3CR -this Monday 17/12/2012

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Be listening to 3CR (that's 855AM on your dial) next Monday (17/12/12) at 10am, for urban cycling show YarraBUG Radio, as I talk to host Val Nagle about my bicycle poetry, sharing some work on air and discussing the urban commuter experience in Melbourne.

YarraBUG Radio encourages people to ride for the sheer fun of it and also to raise awareness in sustainable transport issues, promoting urban cycling as a viable means of transport, highlighting Yarra’s cycling conditions, demystify cycling technology, and helping reveal the diversity of cyclists around from children, to commuters, to lobbyists... and the odd performance poet.

more info:

http://www.3cr.org.au/yarrabug

http://www.yarrabug.org/radio/

__________________________

-Peace

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