A sold-out poetry show? In Perth? Yes, you heard me right.

Last night I performed in the Japanese Gardens, Perth Zoo's sweet little outdoor amphitheatre, as part of Poetry d'Amour, WA Poets Inc's second annual Valentine's Day poetry extravaganza, which this year was part of Fringe World.

When you organise a show, publicity is the hardest thing to get right, and it seems WA Poets Inc and Fringe World got it right for this event, because it was sold out. About 150 denizens of the planet's most isolated city, often derided as a philistine mining outpost, paid to see a poetry show. And not just an apologetic $5 cover charge. They paid the kind of money you would expect to pay for an arty theatre show: standard tickets were $35.

What this says to me is that Perth has plenty of people who like poetry enough to pay to watch it. Perth could have poetry shows throughout the year, if its poets muster the energy, confidence and persistence to find venues, book people who can present poems in a way that engages the audience, and promote the shows effectively.

WA Poets Inc are currently blessed with a volunteer, Tineke Van der Eecken, who is not only a full-time jewellery artist and writer, but has a marketing degree.

Poets, rather than looking at someone like Tineke and thinking, 'if only I could be like that', or, 'if only I had the money to hire someone like that', or, worst of all, 'Tineke can do that, so I don't need to bother', I suggest we think like this: 'I'm a smart person, so what can I learn from the way Tineke has handled this?'

Here's something I've learned. We need to figure out who our potential audience are, and put ourselves in their shoes. Where do they go, what do they read? Where can we put our message so they'll see it? What kind of image would appeal to them? How can we make our show look like something they'll enjoy? As a writer I feel slightly ill having to think this way, but a short catchy name and a strong visual image are probably worth more than any amount of descriptive text.

We could all go get marketing degrees, I guess...nah. I can't imagine doing that! But I can imagine reading some books on marketing (from the public library, of course!). Maybe I can ignore the cold-blooded money-making win-at-all-costs aspect of it and focus on the skills and how they might apply to my own work.

'But I'm an ahrtist', you say. 'I shouldn't have to dirty my hands with marketing.' Well, okay, if you're content being read only by poets and professors of literature. And I totally agree that your writing and editing should be your priorities. But do you want the public to read and hear your poems, or not? Do you want poetry to have an audience? Tugging at the overlocked hem of the mainstream isn't going to do it. If we want to make something alternative happen, we have to ignore the establishment gatekeepers and put in some energy of our own. Especially in this town.

Poetry d'Amour was a major effort for the volunteers, five months of work -- getting sponsors, organising two support events, and even publishing a book -- but putting on poetry shows wouldn't have to be that much effort every time. It's worth considering what works for other alternative artforms. For example, the thriving local acoustic music scene may have a huge annual festival at Fairbridge, but they also have house concerts, sellout shows in cafe courtyards... and mailing lists of fans, hint hint. Anyone who buys a ticket can be asked if they want to be kept informed of future events. There are software platforms that make this unbelievably easy.

So how was Poetry d'Amour? Did we give the punters what they paid for?

I'm not about to review my own performance, although it felt like I pretty much nailed it. Performing outdoors to non-poets is my favourite thing. But remember what I said about putting ourselves in the audience's shoes? Let me think. Yes. Definitely. The lighting was inadequate and the seats were hard, but judging by the clapping and cheering, and all the people who came up to say thankyou to myself, Annamaria Weldon, headliner Candy Royalle (poeming again at Perth Poetry Club tomorrow afternoon), and the many other poets who contributed... I'd say it totally went off. 

Well done and thank you to all the poets, artists and musicians, to the stage and venue personnel, to Fringe World, and most of all to Tineke, Gary De Piazzi, Chris Arnold, Neil J Pattinson, Helen Janis, and all the other volunteers, including Jamie Macqueen who livestreamed the show.

Now then. I wonder whether there'll be any reviews? And whether they'll be published where our audience will read them?

Deft, left and definitely def: Ben Mellor's 'Anthropoetry' at FringeWorld

Last night I took the number 22 bus up Beaufort Street to FringeWorld venue Noodle Palace for the opening night of Anthropoetry, written and performed by UK poet Ben Mellor and his musical sideman Dan Steele.

Anthropoetry is billed as 'a humorous, musical, spoken word journey around the human anatomy, attempting to get the measure of modern life.' Let me be honest here: after reading that I was expecting to cringe. I was expecting lots of groan-worthy anatomical puns. I was expecting words spoken too fast to take in, competing unsuccessfully with too-loud music. I was expecting an overdramatised performance of forgettable poetry whose impact depended on the performer's charisma more than the words. I was also expecting a boringly long show in an uncomfortable venue with terrible sound.

It wasn't like that at all.

The sound was excellent. Local artist management company JumpClimb have done a great job of setting up an intimate theatre in a back room of an old house. The stage is a tiny black-draped box with just enough room for Mellor to stand to one side of the card-table holding Steele's keyboard and electronica. The producers have gone to some effort to get the room to sound good, with exotic umbrellas softening the ceiling.

Mellor performed for an hour. He recited ten poems, all set to music of the hip-hop or jazzy/funky variety, with a touch of metal guitar thrown in, some inventive beatboxing, and...well... rather than risking a spoiler, let's just say these guys have thought up some truly weird juxtapositions of a microphone and a body.

The music was enjoyable in itself. Steele is an excellent musician, and his sounds and beats always complemented and supported the poetry rather than competing with it. And Mellor's a pretty good beatboxer and wrangler of the loop-pedal.

In one or two of the poems I thought the music was a little too loud, but most of the time the words were clear. This is really important with poetry: poetry is art made of words, so if you can't make out the words it's kind of like looking at a painting through a smokescreen. As well as a smooth, well-practised flow, Mellor has good diction and a relaxed, focussed stage presence. He doesn't feel the need to shout and emote -- he lets the words and pauses and his excellent sense of theatrical timing do the work. His material is good enough to let him do that.


People always want to know what poems are about, for some reason. I reckon that's like asking what the Mona Lisa is about. Huh? It's art. You figure it out. But to give you a hint, Mellor's poems aren't about the body, at least not in the straightforward way I expected. The body motif is used as a framing device to segue between the poems, which are quirky, original sociopolitical comment. The poems are funny alright -- plenty of cheap and not-so-cheap laughs -- but underneath the humour are deep layers of emotion and intellect. It's deft, left and definitely def.

One of the surprises for me was the way Mellor introduced each poem with an explanatory preamble: part lecture, part self-deprecating anecdote, part humour. The first one was very long and full of the expected body-part puns -- others in the audience were laughing, but I was thinking 'This isn't a poem, and it's not even that funny. When's he going to give us a poem?' -- but the rest of the intros were shorter and more in accord with my surrealist-intellectual sense of humour. The guy's a lot of fun to listen to. He'd make a great teacher.

And his poems are really good. That's the thing that surprised and impressed me most about Mellor -- how good his poems are. And that he is unapologetically a poet. He doesn't feel the need to bill himself as a musician or a comedian or a cabaret act. He's a poet. He even references other poets, such as Seamus Heaney, in his preambles. It's inspiring! And after the show you can buy his poems on a CD and in a book, a real book, nicely produced, with a spine and everything. The preamble speeches are there too. (Weird.)

My favourite poems of the show were the deep, clever, deliriously-rhymed 'Head State' ('when a guy's life's so desperate he'd die in flames escaping / Makes me wonder what state are the heads of our heads of state in?') and 'Peak Love', a darkly funny dystopian vision of a future (or present?) in which love is a commodity in short supply.

The only poem that fell flat was 'Naming of Parts', written after the Henry Reed poem. (Look it up!) The applause for this one was lukewarm. The audience were hesitant. If you know the original, this poem works well on the page, sending up the language of violent masculinity... but maybe you just can't reach people's intellectual sensibilities with a rapid-fire performance of peculiar English penis-words.

All the other poems went down well, and at the end of the show the audience applauded long and loud. If Mellor and Steele hadn't already been packing up their gear, I think people would have been yelled for more. You don't often get that at poetry shows.

Before everyone wandered off, I asked a few people what they thought.

'Masculine,' said Andrea. I'm not sure whether she meant that as a plus or a minus, but I thought the show was intelligently masculine: masculine without being sexist.

'Lovely... charismatic, enjoyable,' said Leon.

'I want to marry him!' said Majda.

I can see her point.

Catch Anthropoetry from 7:45pm on 1-3 and 6-10 February 2013 at JumpClimb and Tomás Ford's venue Noodle Palace, at 451 (not 555!) Beaufort Street, Highgate. Standard tickets are $20.

Details and bookings

Some advice for would-be poets: Judge's Report, Glen Phillips Poetry Prize 2012

When the Peter Cowan Writers Centre asked me to be the judge for their recent poetry competition, I was pleased, but a bit hesitant. I don't often enter poetry competitions because choosing one poem as the 'best' from a whole field of entries seems kind of arbitrary. But I'm always up for a new experience, and they wanted me to commend twelve poems altogether, so I agreed. Besides, getting paid to read poems and write about them was too good to pass up. On Sunday I made my way through the rain to Joondalup to present my report and announce the winners. Thanks to Sue, Susan and Pedro of Peter Cowan Writers Centre for a nice lunch and a very enjoyable afternoon.

I believe the poems are to be published in the next few issues of the Centre's members' e-newsletter.

§

If my count is correct there were 348 entries. Reading them all was fun, like exploring a new English-speaking city: at first it seems familiar but it soon reveals quite a few surprises.

Several times I recognised a poem from a reading or workshop, but rarely did I remember who'd written it. When I did, it was difficult to be objective and judge the poem without thinking about the poet, but I did my best.

126 of the entries went into the reject pile on the first reading. I wanted to tell these writers, you are not Keats. Be yourself! Stop trying to be 'poetic': it isn't working. Listen to your own 21st-century voice and write down its words. In many cases I wanted to shout, for heaven's sake, drop the rhyme! It's crippling you! Rhyme can be entertaining; rhyme can increase the impact of a poem by highlighting and unifying ideas. But it must be done skilfully or it's a fast-track to dreadfulness. If your idea of a poem is a string of clichés with lame or painful rhymes at the line-ends, you'd be better off to spend your entry-fee money on...

...poetry books! If you want to be taken seriously as a poet, read widely. Familiarise yourself with all the ways in which poetry has been written during the past 50 years or so, and let this cornucopia of styles influence you. Perhaps start with a recent anthology aimed at students. A 'poet' who doesn't read new poetry is like a 'painter' who never goes near a gallery.

118 entries went into the 'meh' pile. These poems were reasonably well-written and often expressed worthwhile ideas, but lacked the 'X-factor', the 'grab', the originality or depth to draw me back for a second and third reading.

52 entries went into the 'frustrating' pile -- poems that contained some original ideas or language but were not well-written enough to shortlist. I felt like writing to each of these poets individually to say, you've got something! Keep writing! Keep reading! Go to workshops!

52 poems were interesting enough for a second look. At this stage my left brain wanted to help with the judging, so I made a spreadsheet. I gave each poem points for six aspects of specialness -- impact, appropriate tone, aesthetic quality, originality, economy of language, depth -- and deducted points for weak spots. A numeric sort floated up most of the poems my right brain had already picked. After that it was fairly easy to choose the winners and highly commendeds, but I agonised over the commendeds and the encouragement award. There were about ten more poems I would have liked to commend or encourage! Choosing the overall winner was difficult, too, like looking at the fruit-bowl just before shopping day: there's one apple, one orange, and a weird tropical thing that no-one's dared to try. Which has the best flavour? It depends who's tasting.

Encouragement Award: 'Poems are gifts' by Nicholas Langton

The title and first few words of this seem bland, and I find the ending weak, but I really like the imagery and the unforced tone. Poems about writing usually leave me cold but the humour and insight in this one made it stand out. I particularly like 'languages stumbled across / going round corners' and 'pain pinned down / so it cannot spread'. Judging from this small sample, this poet has a good ear: a sensitive mastery of rhythm and linebreak.

Commended

'Days' by Keren Gila Raiter

This poem has a hypnotic combination of striking imagery ('the world is the chain come off my bicycle... hands covered in cuts and black grease', 'a big black bear looming over a beetle') and meditative philosophical exploration; its concerns are both personal and political; and its tone is finely balanced between conversation and cadence.

'For Jean' by Jerry Dolan

I like this poem for its effectiveness - it does a great job of showing us, using a natural tone, how it might feel to have Alzheimer's. It's refreshing to have a poem on this topic that just describes what's happening and doesn't descend into lamentations. The poem is economically written and well-structured, with each stanza exploring one image. I particularly like the sustained metaphor of the birds and mayflies in the first stanza.

'The Fall' by Carmel Summers

This poem captures the shock and strangeness of tripping and landing flat, and in doing so asks deep questions about the meaning and nature of aging and death. The voice is authentic and human ('mid-sentence it happened', 'lying there / your foot caught / in an awkward hole', 'oomph').

'Under the Jacaranda' by C Millner

This poem is questioning, paradoxical, Zen-like, speaking of both naming and unnaming, of both the individual and her or his human and ecological context. I enjoyed the recalcitrance -- the grumpiness! -- of part II, where the speaker complains, 'But I'm down the garden' and 'Besides, I'm not finished'. This recalcitrant voice contrasts nicely with the meditative voice of parts I and III.

Highly Commended

'An ugly convalescence' by Rafael Scomazzon Ward

This is one of those poems that make you go 'ewww'! But life can be 'ewww', especially for carers, and this poem uses plain-spoken description to make us see, smell and feel the squalor and desperation of not quite coping. The present tense is well-chosen here, evoking a sense of endlessness. This is a really good example of how to 'show, don't tell'. Poetic devices are used sparsely but effectively. (By the way, you clean handkerchiefs by soaking them in salty water before you wash them.)

'Passing Through' by Giancarla Curtis

I think a poem is a text whose form is at least as important as its content. As the only shaped poem that was submitted, and one of the very few that departed from traditional sentence structure, this poem states that boldly. Like its shape on the page, like the conversation it narrates, this poem is so deceptively simple that it's difficult to talk about. I read it aloud several times, enjoying the economy of the parataxis, which creates a space, a silence, into which the flower names cascade, and in which the dialogue arises comfortably and naturally.

'sonnet breathing' by Kevin Gillam

Reading this poem is like visiting a small gallery of colourful, playful paintings. 'The shag-piled silence.' 'Gills of dawn.' The rhyme is subtle ('allemanded... sarabanded') and the rhythm and patterning are masterful, as they should be in a poem that is about rhythm and pattern. Are we breathing, swimming, dancing, playing the accordion, writing a sonnet, or just coming home, going to bed, getting up and going out?... Yes.

'They came' by Rachel Freebury

This poem is an example of how traditional metre can be used effectively and appropriately. The tone is plain and dignified: there is no florid language or thunderous rhyme, no ranting or emoting. The relentless rhythm evokes the driving assault of the colonisers, as does the repetition of 'They came'. The linebreaks after each 'They came' slow down the poem so that it doesn't become singsong, and, if you read slowly enough, they create a menacing quality.

Third: 'On Final Things' by Christopher Race

I love the way this says so much without appearing to say anything at all. One of the poet's jobs is to record the here-and-now and show us the way our ordinary dailiness connects and contrasts with our wider context, and this poem does that extremely well. The speaker reads the paper and goes out to look at the world, with all its creation and destruction, but is perhaps more concerned about his or her own body and mortality, just as the kookaburra is hunting for its own 'hot lunch'. Appropriately, this poem's speaker, even when talking about a 'they', is full of 'I'.

Second: 'Tenebrae' by Alison Flett

I thought this was the most beautiful poem that was submitted, and also one of the deepest and most poignant. 'Tenebrae' means 'shadows' or 'darkness'. It also refers to a Catholic ritual in which candles were successively extinguished, and I suspect the poet knew that when she chose it as the title of a poem inspired by the rituals of a household at the gradual coming of dusk. The shadows slowly blot out the natural world until we close the curtains on it, leaving us with only the lights and noises of our machines... until we remember and -- in a while! not just yet! -- part the curtains. At the point of remembering, the poem, appropriately, abandons its tidy mechanical layout to jump around and crisscross the page like the tracks of the nocturnal animals. This poem has a striking precision of imagery -- 'the plain / and purl of their trunks, ribbing the dark', 'wi-fi rustling in the folds of our brain', 'the spindled / pinpoints / of their insect / legs' -- but the overall tone is restrained and dignified, as befits a poem centred on ritual.

First: 'Domesticity' by Jim Murphy

This might be a controversial choice, but I couldn't resist giving it first prize. It so perfectly renders the flat voice of a long-married and probably retired man^* who seems to have forgotten how to feel. He speaks of the dog or cat as if it's a machine. Its death is merely an inconvenience. He doesn't care that his book and TV program are mediocre -- they're less of a challenge than talking to his wife. The one-word rhymes thud each stanza closed like a fridge door. The rhymes, and the description of the pet ('leaking -- at both ends!') add a touch of levity: we suspect the character is quietly having a laugh at himself. The title, 'Domesticity', seems to imply that the character thinks this state of affairs is inevitable. The only glimmer of hope comes at the end when he hears his wife saying she has no-one to talk to. We are left to wonder what he -- or she! -- will do next. The poem is stylishly and economically written: there is nothing missing and nothing superfluous. To put it another way: there's no bullshit.

*OK, this poem could be about a lesbian couple. But I suspect not.

4 weeks in the ghost house: Writing in Residence at Mattie Furphy House

-->
It's a wintry day, but the sharp Perth light pushes its way through the clouds onto my donated desk, a yellowed pine dining table. The antique table and chairs in the corner are roped off, presumably too fragile or precious to sit at, but not sacred: powerboards, papers and stationery obscure the white lace tablecloth. At my back a brick fireplace is surrounded by copper-panel grapevines and burnished jarrah. In one corner a cheap fan heater oscillates hesitantly.
I'm almost at the end of four weeks' residency at the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA (FAWWA). I've been living and working at their writers centre in the Allen Park Heritage Precinct, hidden behind the trees at the beachward end of Wood Street in the upper-middle-class Perth suburb of Swanbourne.
The Fellowship have two houses here: Tom Collins House and Mattie Furphy House. Their denizens call them Tom's and Mattie's. I'm living and working in Mattie's, which was built between 1908 and the 1920s by Joseph Furphy, aka novelist Tom Collins, for the copper-panel artist Mattie Furphy (nee McCausland), the wife of Joseph's son Samuel. The Furphys built the house in Clement Street, five minutes' leafy walk away, but in 2005 the Fellowship rescued it from the McMansion-developers, moved it here and spent seven years restoring it. In March 2012 they launched it as the Mattie Furphy Centre for Creative Imagining.
There are quarters for the resident writer, a kitchen and two work rooms. I'm sitting in the smaller work room, once the family dining room. It's is big enough for a small workshop or conference, but I've appropriated it as my office. I call it the sunshine room. Outside the cream-painted windows and French doors there are jarrahs and marris, green plastic tree-guards, walking paths, a pile of planks, a stack of bricks, and Tom's in its white-weatherboard red-roof mediocrity, leaves piling up in its gutter. There's one car: a battered wagon belonging to FAWWA's caretaker, the poet Peter Bibby, who's away at the moment.
I'm hankering to finish a particular poem, but that can't be done quickly, so I've delegated it to my subconscious for the time being while I reflect on my stay here.
Everyone I meet says, 'How's the residency? How's the writing going? I'll bet you're getting lots written. Not having any distractions must be nice.'
Well, yes and no.
Yes, I've done lots of writing. I've written every day, worked on many different poems, made a zine and started this blog. I brought in Seventh Continent Productions to film a performance video. Because I have to write a report I started keeping a logbook to track my work, and that's been so encouraging that I'm going to keep it up after I leave. Being my own manager, I can't stay away from email for longer than a few days, but I've kept away from the rest of the Internet as much as I can. I've done a lot of reading and thinking. My writing journal and logbook are electronic, which makes it easy to tag and search, and the last four weeks are full of Poems, Opportunities, Things Learned, Ideas and Insights. I get to be only a writer except when my kids call me -- it's opulent luxury!
But it's not true that there are no distractions. I'm living in a writers centre! People come and go, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays when the office in Tom's is open and busy with volunteers. On Tuesdays lunch is served for the volunteers: good bread and homemade soup set out on placemats for ten or more seated around the sagging main table among the antique furniture in the front room at Tom's. When it's time for soup someone wanders over and taps on my window.
And guess what happens? I get talking! People can be very distracting. On the other hand, they give me ideas, energy and drive, especially when they're the ones who did so much tedious grant-writing and -- how can I put this nicely? -- networking, in order to get my funding.
People also come in for workshops and mentoring sessions. Some are mine, as required by my contract, and some are run by others. While I've been here there have been several meetings and workshops complete with teamaking and noise (and some useful contacts for me).
Most events are held in Mattie's front room, a big, beautiful, timber-scented room with a mirrored fireplace. If it were mine I'd bring in overstuffed leather couches, funny little tables, brass candlesticks and portraits of dead poets -- but that's not going to happen, because its size and acoustics make it perfect for classes and meetings as well as intimate performance events like readings, house concerts or book launches (and yes, you can hire it). So it's furnished with stackable chairs and plastic trestle tables.
But most of the time I've been alone with the walls. And the floors. And the chairs. And the cushions. Are you getting the idea? The biggest distraction is the house itself. I meant to tell you all about my writing and activities and my ideas for the writers centre, but -- rather like the Fellowship itself -- I seem be kind of stuck on the house.
From outside Mattie's house looks empty, unused. The wide front verandah contains two ratty doormats and a picnic table. That's all. It could use some seating, perhaps some potted plants, and a big friendly sign on the front. But I suspect that would require formfilling, phone calls and long difficult meetings with the local authorities. Welcoming signs are definitely not the civic style around here. The whole suburb is as smoothly groomed as the dogs and owners who walk, jog and personal-train on the oval outside my bedroom window. From the street there's no evidence that a writers centre lurks behind the vegetation. A small sign near the house says 'Beware of Venomous Snakes': if I added 'and Poets' it'd be the only graf for miles.
People say there's a ghost here, but I haven't seen it. I think the house itself is the ghost, caught between two worlds, the past and the future, unsure of how to move on.
Here's an idea for you, ghost. I can Creatively Imagine this house as a drop-in centre for writers, open all weekend every weekend, with a roster of experienced writers in attendance, with formal and informal talks, discussions, readings and workshops, with quiet writing times, with ambient music, with a lending library (gold coin donation?), with a book and zine sales table in one corner, and in the entrance a large, prominent box with a slot in the top, into which the community who love coming here contribute according to their not inconsiderable means to keep the centre going.
Making something like that a reality wouldn't take much funding, just time, enthusiasm, organisation and community connection. But it's just one idea.
The writer-in-residence coming in after me is another career writer and educator, Horst Kornberger. It's Friday morning, so he's here now, teaching his year-long course 'The Writers Passage'. He has at least fifteen enthusiastic students. I can tell when he takes a break by the eruption of noise around the tea urn. I ask him what he thinks of the house. 'This place was conceived, built and used by artists', he says, 'and should continue to be used by artists. It has a potent spirit of place, a powerful creative effect.'
This being Perth, the sun has come out. It's shining on the jamjar vase of foliage and flowers I've stolen from nearby houses with more garden than they need. In a minute I'll go into the gloriously modern kitchen and make a snack. Then maybe I'll walk down and look at the sea. After that, I suspect I'll get my poem finished.