Here’s a little bit about Chris and the poem he read at the May gig.

Chris Lynch is a Brisbane-based writer and teacher. His poetry has appeared in SpeedPoets, Blackmail Press, page seventeen, Islet, Brisbane New Voices II, Eye to the Telescope, and Star*Line, among others. A regular performer of his poetry, including two appearances at the Queensland Poetry Festival, Chris was Speedpoet Champion of 2010, and has been shortlisted for the Jack Stamm Haiku Award. He blogs occasionally at www.chrislynch.com.au

*****

Grandma Katherine

the grand old Victorian lady
from Adelaide who married

a Catholic and lived separately
from her publican husband

because she loved him
and had too many things

to do in the city to work
the cold rows of almond trees

who was so imposing
that even years after

she’d been cremated
lived on in the imperious

scent of her lounge—
my grumpy dachshund

(who could bite the finger off
anyone except me and Mum)

would suspiciously
scurry past, all but

making the sign of the cross—
the mother whose four

children would scatter
to the four corners

of the globe, marrying
foreigners or God

who on the way to Mass
on one of her visits

would instruct the five of us
to slide shut the windows

of our old Mitsubishi L300
because her white hair

was being made
slightly less perfect

and who once told me
through the shower curtain

that she wouldn’t look in at me
if I didn’t look out at her

seated on the throne
and did we have a deal

and thinking this is
weird

and feeling pretty sure
it wasn’t just me

but saying yes because
when you’re a boy

no doesn’t mean no
and anyway I think

she was already doing it.

*****

So if you want to be in the running to be named Call-Back-Poet in June, make sure you are at The Hideaway (188 Brunswick St) on Saturday June 29. Doors open at 1:30pm and sign on for the open section is open until 2pm. With features from Melbourne based spoken word innovator Santo Cazzati and Brisbane rock goddess Kellie Lloyd, where else would you want to be? Entry is a gold coin donation.

Son of Italian immigrants to Australia, Santo Cazzati emerged from past lives as a classical concert pianist and avant garde jazz musician to teach at an elite Melbourne private school which must remain anonymous in order to protect those concerned. He performs in a range of styles, from fast rhythmical delivery to slow atmospheric meditation, with a strong music influence and critical ironic distance. A fixture on Melbourne’s grass roots poetry scene, his feature performances have included Melbourne Writers Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival, Overload Poetry Festival and La Mama Theatre. He is a presenter of the Spoken Word radio programme on 3CR and the PJ (‘poetry jockey’) of the House of Bricks Spoken Word gig. He appears on Going Down Swinging and Voiceprints CDs as well as the Melbourne Poetry Map website. He is a winner of the Overload Shelton Lea Award for Best Solo Performance.

Kellie Lloyd grew up playing bass in beloved Brisbane band Screamfeeder. Now she’s out on her own playing what she likes to call Dark Pop. It’s guitar driven, sometimes with a band, sometimes with just a drummer, but one thing is for sure… it’s loud and it’s dark and it’s dreamy. Rolling Stone described her solo debut, Magnetic North as “peppered with haunting hooks, sentimentality and otherworldliness.”

And as always, there will be plenty of space in the Open Mic Section with all readers in the running to be named Call-Back-Poet for the month. Each of the Call-Back-Poets will earn themselves a feature spot at the November event where they will have the opportunity to take home cash prizes, be crowned SpeedPoets Open Mic Champion, and thanks to Phillip Ellis, have a chapbook length zine of their work published ready to launch at the February 2014 event.

Ink it in your diary people!

Date: Saturday June 29
Venue: The Hideaway, 188 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley
Time: Doors at 1:30pm for a 2pm Open Mic Start
Entry: Gold Coin Donation

Fresh from a series of sell-out ‘Chosen Family’ shows at the Anywhere Theatre Festival with Eleanor Jackson, Betsy is bringing her solo show to the SpeedPoets stage. For anyone who has seen her weave her tapestry of words on stage, I am sure you will be knocking the door down to get in, and if you have not yet had the pleasure, then you are in for a treat!

Remember, doors open at 1:30pm and sign on for Open Mic is open from 1:30pm – 2pm.

Entry is a gold coin donation, but the more you give the easier it is to keep this event running.

It’s been 13 years… and there’s no sign of slowing down!

Here’s a poem from Betsy to send keep you satiated til Saturday.

See you then,

*****

Campfire

The purple sky breathes shooting stars,
makes good excuses for holding hands
as she slowly inches her fingertips over my knuckles.

Her eyes, focused on the fire, hide my blush.

I wear the thickness of mystery
veiled in a middle name she doesn’t know.

But she wants to know my hands.
I can feel the tremble in her touch.
I pause, my lips mid-sip.

Bubbles rest on my tongue.
You can’t always trust what you feel.
You can’t always feel what you touch.

But I’ll let her take a chisel to my marbled skin.
Let her carve her kisses into my cuts.

© Betsy Turcot

*****

Betsy Turcot has featured at Queensland Poetry, Melbourne Overload, Brisbane Emerging Arts, Anywhere Theatre and Woodford Folk festivals. She is a guest MC, curator and feature at Brisbane’s spoken word poetry event, Words or Whatever, and has contributed to the Melbourne Poetry Map.

Betsy was co-author of the poetic play, She Stole My Every Rock and Roll with fellow poet, Eleanor Jackson and has been a member of The Broken Records Collective with Doubting Thomas and Darkwing Dubs. She is the author of the chapbook Blister and is currently writing a poetic play, Chosen Family, for the Anywhere Theatre Festival with The Belles of Hell.

And let’s not forget the red hot Open Mic Section. All readers  are automatically in the running to be named Call-Back-Poet for the month. What does this mean?

Each of the Call-Back-Poets will earn themselves a feature spot at the November event where they will have the opportunity to take home cash prizes, be crowned SpeedPoets Open Mic Champion, and thanks to Phillip Ellis, have a chapbook length zine of their work published ready to launch at the February 2014 event. A great prize indeed!

Sound like the perfect way to finish the month of May? We’d love to see you there!

Date: Saturday May 25
Venue: The Hideaway, 188 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley
Time: Doors at 1:30pm for a 2pm Open Mic Start
Entry: Gold Coin Donation

Here’s a poem from B.R. Dionysius to help you through the week!

Café Bohemia

(i)

Winter; & he stole away from his Highgate Hill flat
Every Wednesday night with a vague return time &
A cheap bottle of tawny port cupped under his armpit
Like a bully’s captured head. His long green trench
Coat gave his mahogany boots a shine as he swished
Along the length of Dornoch Terrace; past the royal
Queenslander on his left, that three years from now
Would be rented by his friends, but for the present,
Was inhabited by band members from Powderfinger.
Where three years later, they’d all gather to celebrate
The marital fallout of his mission to Café Bohemia.
His ears burnt like a deposed General’s epaulettes
As he marched on like a man possessed, her call
To him more powerful than any ancient siren.

(ii)

He wanted to arrive first. To secure a coveted table
Within the tight margins of the coffee shop, for her
& her two friends; to demonstrate his thoughtfulness.
Otherwise, it was standing room only as street poets
& hipsters channelling Kerouac & his wine dark prose
Filled up the dining space like blue cigarette smoke.
He greeted fellow writers with a wave & a nod, as he
Was lousy at small talk & good at reading big poems.
They were the Bohemian poets of Hardgrave Road.
90s poets like black bearded Francis & his perennial
Leather coat that he never ever took off, until twenty
Years of listening to poetry; to the millions of words
Crooned about death, love & loss, had polished his
Mind’s animal hide, until his face shone like a god.

(iii)

She entered the café wearing her friend’s teal velvet
Coat; auburn hair gleamed like a burnished table top.
Candle stumps burnt down their short lives in front
Of them; they spread their wax wings down the wine
Bottle’s stem, then dried their delicate delta shapes in
The port breath of poets as the reading warmed up.
They read poems about West End & Daniel Yock.
About Murri protests in Charlotte Street, landlords &
Gentrification & how all the boarding houses were lost.
How the family house where that Go Betweens singer
Grew up, had been pulled down for the Greek Club.
How the police raided Musgrave Park & how Tracey
Wigginton lapped up blood like a mangrove sucks mud.
By the time it was his turn; his tawny was half drunk.

(iv)

At the interval Henk, the bespeckled Dutch organiser
Whose most memorable line was about how he often
Awoke to find his cock still rigid inside his girlfriend;
Would disappear into the kitchen with an assortment of
Followers, where Mira’s goulash threatened to burn itself,
Tasty, but mad in its pot. Here, in the wooden floorboards
There lived a small trapdoor, which led from the galley to
A secret lower deck: the café’s oubliette. Here, poets fuelled
Up on gunja, the smoke siphoned away by an invisible vent.
Some though, still wafted through the café’s warped cracks;
Like a sailor’s last breath as they drown in an Eliot poem.
Others snuck round the back, where they lawn-sprawled
Like they’d been in a shipwreck. Here, they met in piratical
Bliss; until her friends drove her off, so he sculled his port.

(v)

She thought he was silent, a bit mysterious; a poet from
The country who tried to loom over her like Ted Hughes.
The regulars didn’t disappoint. Brentley, whose themes
Were a shade darker than the dirtiest black hole; his muse
Went to star on TV as a masterchef. Or Adam, the epitome
Of beat; who published for a decade, then like Rimbaud
Gave it all up to run guns metaphorically. Or Lidija & her
Serbian mystique, who trailed lovers around her neck like
Threads in a shawl. Or Rebecca, the poet of bones & mishap,
Who shaved her head so everyone could see her new world.
Or Fakie, who read from industrial-sized post-paks he stole
From the factory where he worked. Or the Great Jeffro,
Whose mad blue eyes blazed forth Shakespeare’s wild surmise;
If poetry is the soul of cafes: then coffee is its blood.

*****

B. R. Dionysius was founding Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival. His poetry has been widely published in literary journals, anthologies, newspapers and online. His seventh poetry collection, Bowra was released in April 2013. He lives in Ipswich, Queensland where he watches birds, teaches English and writes sonnets.

After Dorothy Porter’s View From 417

I am making a habit
of all this walking into
then out
of my chest.

Making my rib cage
a revolving door
of starts
and stops.

Hiding a jack-knife
behind my teeth

And lungs pumping
a pair
of blustered bellows.

Washing sparks into a throat,
birthing them grey,
soft and rolling

into the blue.

And you did it right to the end,
or at least in my head
you did,
down to the last
‘can’t believe my luck’

dot… when my 417 finds me,

dot… I will find its spine… and break us out.

Dot, when I go,
I want to go down singing,
breathing out
beneath
a wisping sky,

having loved the world,
having drunk it dry.

When I go,
let me greet the end
with a jack-knife tongue,
a throat raw and smoking
like a shotgun.

In a blast of sparks
into a wisping
sky.

Let me walk out of my chest
ready and lucky,
wearing a ready
‘what’s
next’
grin.

*****

About Simon:

I suppose I’m another one of those poorly ironed white collars that got halfway up the career ladder and realised it had left something behind. For me, that ‘left behind’ was writing which I returned to at the end of 2012 after a long time focused on other things.

I have been published precisely nowhere (except my own blog), performed only in small rooms, the sum total of my awards list is two jars of jam (and now a Speedpoets call-back) and yet I have felt so welcomed by the warmth, the energy and the lunacy of the Brisbane spoken word community that… well… what more could a fella want?

Kate Jacobsen made the room smile with her honeyed vocals and country hooks; Thomas Day blew things up with a live installation that unpicked the seams of sexuality and war; and the 26 open mic readers whispered, roared and enchanted. Call-Back-Poet for the month was SpeedPoets first-timer, Simon Kindt, with a poem for Dorothy Porter that sent a shiver through the entire room.

I will be posting a feature on Simon later in the week, but for now, here’s a few pics from the day, thanks to the lovely Chloe Callistemon.

Kate Jacobsen live at SpeedPoets

*

Thomas Day drops the machinery

*

What’s left of the map

*

The audience transfixed

Kate Jacobson is one half of popular Brisbane indie-country/folk duo, Texas Tea. She is revered as one of Queensland’s up-and-coming song writing talents and her solo show has been described as enchanting, evocative and unique, incorporating voice, guitar and foot percussion.

Thomas Day utilises words, sound and drone, collage, film and photography with live performances often combining these elements to create immersive interdisciplinary works. He won the 2011 Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup with a satirical work deconstructing the nature of charity under Capitalism; and once lost a Slam for failing to vomit up a poem he had just swallowed.

And of course, there will be the red hot Open Mic Section with all readers in the running to be named Call-Back-Poet for the month and earn themselves a feature spot at the final gig of the year in November and the opportunity to win cash prizes and be named SpeedPoets Open Mic Champion. And as always Sheish Money will also be out front of Moveable Feast, playing with that blues swagger that drives the SpeedPoets’ engine.

Sound like the perfect way to close out your April? See you there…

Date: Saturday April 27
Venue: The Hideaway, 188 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley
Time: Doors at 1:30pm for a 2pm Open Mic Start
Entry: Gold Coin Donation

Here’s a new poem from Chloe to celebrate!

*****

North West

Perched high on the road, I
rumble through the desert.

The world is dusted
the colour of apricots.

A cow lies, legs in the air —
gas-fat, skin dried, drum-tight.

Once-orange work vests
flash sunburnt white.

In the silence post-4WD,
lizards rattle pebbles.

Sun soaks my camp, stains
a pool of sky.

Stars brand the night, hiss
through sweated dreams.

Dingo howls circle, noose
sound and reason.

Today’s sun rises through rotors,
beams slicing ridge tops.

Mudflat dragon-tails snake
away from twisting rivers.

Climb sandstone to reach
blood-red paintings.

Scratched and tanned. These rocks
feel like home.

*****

Chloë Callistemon is a Brisbane photographer and arts eclectivist. She has been a Jack Stamm Haiku Award finalist, performed as a bird as part of a.rawlings’s GIBBER, and has a work in an international anthology trying to save rhinos, amongst other things. Has pen and camera, will travel.

*****

Chloe will join February Call-Back-Poet, Trish Reid as a feature at the November gig and is now in the running to win $200 in cash prizes and the title, SpeedPoets Open Mic Champion 2013.

“Confessional Box maps the undulating landscapes of home, love and letting go. Page’s poems are sensuous, compassionate and filled with quiet wisdom; they are a celebration of the world’s infinite gifts.”

“haematograms reaches into the tight corners of the mind to seize instants of clarity. Ellis is unique in his knowing, sharpest when catching things that he knows won’t last. This is an impressive debut, one where the charm of the ordinary and the mysterious collide; where the reader is transported into the poet’s other-world to walk the edge of his imagining.”

And of course, there will be the red hot Open Mic Section with all readers in the running to be named Call-Back-Poet for the month and earn themselves a feature spot at the final gig for the year in November and the opportunity to win cash prizes and be named SpeedPoets Open Mic Champion.  Sheish will also be out front of Moveable Feast, playing with that blues swagger that drives the SpeedPoets’ engine. For those of you who missed them last month, here’s a clip from the February gig, complete with me getting over excited and jumping up on stage to read a poem.

So be sure to lock Saturday March 30 in… SpeedPoets wants you!

SpeedPoets March 2013

Date: Saturday March 30
Venue: The Hideaway, 188 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley
Time: Doors at 1:30pm for a 2pm Open Mic Start
Entry: Gold Coin Donation

]]> http://speedpoets.com/2013/03/13/speedpoets-fills-your-easter-long-weekend-with-words/feed/ 1 speedpoets http://speedpoets.com/2013/03/12/speedpoets-february-2013-call-back-poet-trish-reid/ http://speedpoets.com/2013/03/12/speedpoets-february-2013-call-back-poet-trish-reid/#comments Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:48:42 +0000 SpeedPoets http://speedpoets.com/?p=399 Continue reading →]]> The first gig of the year was a special one, with swaggering performances by house band, Moveable Feast and feature poet, Andrew Phillips. As always, the Open Mic section, was studded with poetic gems, making the job extra hard for Andrew and Sheish to call back just one poet. But, the job was done (and done well), and as Andrew said, the February Call-Back-Poet’s words held him tight in his seat. That poet, was Trish Reid.

[Photograph by Cindy Keong]

Here’s one of the poems Trish read on the day:

on her 70th wedding anniversary

she remembers the waist of the wedding dress
eighteen inches she said and the row
of tiny self-covered buttons
brailing her back
needing to be buttoned up
and unbuttoned

her father had clambered
hand over hand onto the lower
plank of the middle class
buttons her climbing dreams

she remembers feeling anxious in the week before
the dress would no longer fit
her conflicted aunt tried to fatten her up

as her uncle kept taking to drink in the front room and
her aunt sharpened her tongue on the front steps
she held her breath

today she visits his grave fingering the words
weather and years will wear to
blank stone

is she remembering his fingers         blindly
unbuttoning her then?

*****

About Trish:

I never understood the point of living in a city until I found SpeedPoets and the poetry community. The last year or so has been a time of accelerated and very pleasurable learning for me.

*****

And just to confirm, SpeedPoets will be serving up a healthy hit of words this coming Easter weekend, so lock in Saturday March 30, 1:30pm – 5pm at The Hideaway. We couldn’t think of any better place for you to be!

More details soon…