The May gig seems like it was only yesterday… that’s how good it was! Alongside Nathan Shepherdson’s incantatory reading from clouds in another’s blood and Rowan Donovan’s blistering return to the SpeedPoets mic, 30 Open Mic readers gave their all… but as they say, there can only be one. And that ‘one’ in the month of May was Marisa Allen. Marisa will now join Jo Brooks and Carmen Leigh Keates at the November reading in what will surely be an epic event, where one of the monthly Call-Back-Poets will be named 2012 SpeedPoets Open Mic Champion. Here’s a hit of Marisa’s work:
For a bird that sings
Such a song as this
Should not be silenced
Her puffed chest
Bursting with a thousand universes
Should not cave
Not for her shadowlands
algebraic complexity
Or the weight of a worn and musty ancient oilskin hanging from the hook ,on the back of
the kitchen door, of the thousands of lovelorn
though she sings but one song
on one moonless night
on one rainy day
on one lonely street
in one hollow trunked tree
It is truest
It is beautifulest
It is the only song she knows
And so it must be sung
*****
Marisa is a multi disciplinary artist working in words, sound and visuals who has performed nationally and abroad. Her sublime and visually illustrative poetry performances have appeared at the ‘07 and ‘09 Queensland Poetry Festival with current invitations to perform at the 2011 QPF and for the 2011 Brisbane Festival Under the Radar, combining experimental sound works with spoken word.
Her chapbook ‘Fire in the Head selected works 1995 – 2006’ is published through Outsiders press, edited by David ‘Ghostboy’ Stavanger. She has appeared as part of the Riverbend Poetry series readings (’10) in Brisbane. Published in Going Down Swinging, Cottonmouth, Speedpoets Zine and Outsiders and regular readings at Speedpoets and Outsiders she was a Woodford Wordfood Slam finalist (‘07/08) and also performed at the Village Festival in Yeppoon QLD (’08).
Along with poetry she has collaborated in live spoken word and recordings with violin for Shane Koyczan (QPF ‘07). Marisa is the front woman for the Qmusic award nominated avant folk, experimental blues act Bremen Town Musician as violinist, vocalist and songwriter and the band performed at QPF 2009. She has toured throughout the United States as violinist to American/ Icelandic country folk act The Foghorns (’07) and has performed solo at Speedpoets, Outsiders and various venues throughout Queensland since 2005..
