Wordstorm - Poetry Slam

Just had a wild evening of poetry.

Kelly Lee Hickey did a brilliant job in both MC'ing and sharing her words with us. scribesistersspeaking was hilarious fun. Ng Yi-Sheng was freaking amazing. So, so awesome.

The actual Poetry Slam was frantic - with the announcement that we were to be kicked out in 30 minutes, the rules were suddenly changed, and everybody had 60 seconds each in a rapid-fire cattle-call of poetry. It was intense, and the drawn finalists had to battle it out with 30-second and 10-second poems. So much fun. My face was aching from grinning by the end of the evening.

Wordstorming

It's currently an exciting time in Darwin. Despite it being slightly more humid that I'd like, nothing could detract from the thrill of yesterday's opening of Wordstorm 2008 - the NT Writer's Festival in Darwin.

The opening featured readings from Dorothy Porter, Yong Shu Hoong, Naldo Rei, Jennifer Mills (with a vividly haunting short story that still remains in my mind) and others.

I then had the pleasure of a double-launch. Firstly was the Black Words database, available through AustLit (which you should be able to access through many Australian Public Libraries).

But more significant was the launch of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, edited by Anita Heiss and Peter Minter. The first anthology of its kind, it features fiction and non-fiction writings, spanning two centuries of indigenous voices from Bennelong to Vincent Lingiari and Kenny Laughton. The editors Anita Heiss and Peter Minton spoke on the significance of this work, as did Arnhem MLA Malarndirri Macarthy, and we were finally treated to a reading by Terri Janke, who gave us a rather steamy work "Exotica" which is featured in the Anthology. It was apparent how important this work is, as part of Australian culture, to finally have an anthology of writing that places the voices of our indigenous people firmly in our history, and there certainly was a lot of love and pride in this work's achievement.

All in all, quite a special afternoon.

This afternoon, I ducked over to the festival to attend a panel talk on "The Pleasures of the Archive". I was particularly interested to hear Ursula Dubosarsky talk about her usage of news clippings in her excellent YA novel, The Red Shoe. She spoke of the fascination that can be captured in a photograph, or newspaper articles, and of the uncanny experience of seeing something familiar, but set in a completely different time, creating an almost gothic unreality. I got to meet her as well, and had a chat further about her book, and the ways that snippets of history can engage the imagination in telling stories.

There were other speakers as well - Alice Garner spoke of her experiences as a research student in France, poring through municipal records and the hidden pleasures therein. Gideon Haigh spoke of corporate runarounds, and being able to discover dubious records, and put them together like an amazing jigsaw puzzle to uncover misdeeds and slimy characters. Andrew McMillan spoke of the joys of hurdles of state libraries and archive services.

To educate and confront..?

The Leichhardt Municipal Council Library has made it into the national news limelight today, after an allegedly controversial and political photography exhibition at the library was cancelled at the 11th hour - allegedly as a result of a visit from police officers associated with the anti-terrorism squad.

I was particularly angry, upon reading the SMH article - not because of the accusations of censorship of free speech (at least not until the actual facts are revealed).

Rather, I'm annoyed because whilst the library staff, quite sensibly, refused to comment on the issue, the Mayor, Carolyn Allen, made the following statement:

"Being in a public library is different to being in an exhibition space. If you're in an exhibition space and someone knows they are going into the exhibition, they expect to be educated and confronted. But most people going into a library just want to return books."
No, of course we don't want to educate and confront people in a library. Because good literature clearly does not educate and confront its readers. And surely, we wouldn't want our library to encourage its users to think and talk and engage with challenging issues! Who needs free-flow of ideas when we can just consume???

I sincerely hope that the library staff at Leichhardt don't hold their councillor's view that, in public libraries, people "just want to return books". Either they're a very boring, non-dynamic, library service, or their Lord Mayor really has absolutely no clue as to the role of public libraries in the community, and needs to actually take an interest in her library's activities before making such ignorant statements.

Veg out weekend...

Lately, things have been... well, tumultuous for me.

Two and a half weeks ago, I went on a much-needed escape to Sydney. Then a week later, after returning to Darwin, I headed to Melbourne for an action-packed six days, featuring the CBCA Conference, and performing a successful four-show season at the Butterfly Club. Returning early last Tuesday morning, and going to work six hours later, the rest of the week consisted of (a) starting a new second job as a reference library at the Northern Territory Library, (b) preparing a submission for a hub venue at the Melbourne Fringe 2008, and (c) producing a show at Brown's Mart last Friday evening.

I've also been preoccupied with the ever-recurring question - "What's next for me?"

I know that I'm getting ever-closer to doing what I want to be doing - I can feel it. CBCA gave me a fresh injection of inspiration, and the successful show in Melbourne also instilled me with the confidence in myself to be able to pull it off.

Last Friday's show, however, had a less-than-impressive attendance confirmed what many artists have been telling me - I can't stay here permanently. And it's not just me - the Darwin Theatre Company put on regular shows here, and even they are struggling to pull crowds. Similarly, with my career, I see the amazing things that other state and public libraries do, and I think, "I want to be a part of that". People who I have met up here who were once visionaries have become burnt out, jaded, and leave, and I have seen myself come dangerously close to that state in recent times.

And that scares me - I don't want to become cynical and pessimistic. I've been there too often in the past.

And I realised that, above all else, I needed to give myself a break. A Veg Out weekend, involving a bit of a sleep in, and then sitting around the house with some books and some DVDs.

Saturday morning consisted of finishing off Short - a nifty collection of short compositions by Australian and NZ Writers that I picked up at CBCA and mostly enjoyed. It also got me thinking about possible programs for teen reluctant readers, but I reminded myself that I wasn't thinking about work this weekend, and that I'd recommend it on Monday. I also made a start on Once upon a time in the North - the latest His Dark Materials-related offering by Philip Pullman, which is kinda cool, and I'll probably finish off tonight.

But then I got distracted by my piano keyboard in the corner of my room, and I started tinkling away at the keys, which led to more writing on my next show.

Like most cabaret, it's storytelling aided by music. And this show is the story of a guy who left Melbourne, a week after turning 28, disgruntled, heartbroken and frustrated, and moved to Darwin. A place of madness, induced by unrelenting weather conditions. A place where racism is not only acceptable, but supported through not-quite-cohesive but all the same convincing argument. A place where the people are obsessed with crocodiles and cane toads. A magical place where swarms of dragonflies herald the beginning of more pleasant seasons. A city of parties - a wild frontier where tourists escape to and unleash the alcoholic beast within. A city that has once been, and could again be, completely wiped out by a cyclone, but nobody seems to worry about it too much.

A place where you learn to accept solitude, because Darwin is a place of transition. People constantly come and go. Friendships become transitory and permanence is never promised. The only constant is yourself, and you're forced to find your self, your voice, your heart. Because home is where the heart is. Everything else just makes it interesting; swinging between painful and endearing.

Of course, this started getting far too deep and meaningful, and after all, this was meant to be a week for relaxing and not worried about stuff. So I rented out some DVDs, and made some awesome vegetarian pizza.

Now, I had put this off for a while, but I finally forced myself to watch The Golden Compass. I feel conflicted. On one hand, they got so many things right - I was happy with most of the casting, and the film was visually stunning (despite the far-too-obviously CGI'd bits). However, my two gripes were:

1. The pace. It just didn't feel right. I can't put my finger on it, but there were bits that were skimmed over (presumably to keep the film at feature length), and great moments that were far too brief.

2. The ending. WHY does it need to have a happy ending, with Lyra and Roger falling asleep, in naively blissful hope for the future? It just came across as wishy-washy, when we could have had the original ending of the book, with its tragic betrayal that was so much more powerful. ARGH! I felt like throwing things when the credit rolled.

The pizza was good, though. Artichokes and fetta are your friend.