Its never wise to think too much about the response to your venues program BEFORE the event. After all the heat generated about ABC cuts and the Liberal Murdoch Governments continued cruelty and incompetence dressed in arrogance I expected poets and musicians would be lining up to vent their reactions at Live Poets @ Don Bank last Wednesday night. Several people had urged a forum for their discontent previously so I decided to call the evening Reflections of Abbottaphobia and for variety have several other features like tributes to Dylan Thomas and George Trakl, poetry from the Ukraine and Pop Goes the Poem - inspired by the new exo at the AGNSW. In the event - Reflections played a minor role overall though we still had plenty of fun around it. Erwin Zehentner who was presenting his talk on George Trakl aided this by bringing along his friend - a sculpture of a faceless man with a tin ear and cement shoes - dressing to the right befitting a Scion of the Peninsula to counter the bulge of his undercarriage and Budgie things. The evening was begun by Open Section first-timer Yarie Bangura who told of her journey from Somali refugee to Australian citizen in Home Away from Home. Mark Marusic read a couple of poems (I believe from his upcoming selection), Che Lives (a reference to Che Guevara t-shirts sold in Gowings many moons ago) and Step in Line. Avalon - a feature of Live Poets early days offered a typically succint observation. Bee and Allan worked their musical magic once more with a couple of songs - encouraging the crowd to support them with David - Guantanomo - its almost calypso beat disguising a weariness about yet more coverage of the David Hicks case from the Howard Years. Erwin - a painter and poet who flowered at venues like the TAP Gallery in Darlinghurst - then took us to Vienna in the early 20th C and the life and troubles of George Trakl who died from a cocaine overdose in 1914. Before that in his brief span George produced free-verse poetry that foreshadowed the modern idiom. Some likened it to Rimbaud in influence - with its clusters of evocative phrases spun from the minds patchwork overlay of reality. Hallucinatory and cinematic. Erwin read several of these magicises - peppered with observations and correlations and scratchings from his own life in the arts. The tribute to Dylan Thomas - he was born in the early days of the 1914 Great War - followed. After a brief intro from the convenor Phil Radmall read The Force that through the Green Fuse, Michael Bartok intoned In My Craft and Sullen Art, Danny explored Fern Hill and Jack Peck offered Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night with an absorbing tale of that poems place in his relationship with his parents. It was then time for poetry from the frontline in the Ukraine-Russian conflict. These were sourced from an online conference attended by the convenor at the Sydney Mechanics Institute last month. It was searing material - DG necessarily re-experiencing a juxtaposition of the English translation and impressions provoked by the local language spoken from the gut. A surreal scene obtained as the inhabitants witnessed neighbours exhibiting unforseen personas under stress and opposing forces were cartoonified into parody and bitter reproach in schoolyard games writ large. A lady policeman became a commandant under the gaze of Dimitry,honey, my captain the local bully became a lonely sergeant, the poets classmate carried bags of ice to the injured at the barricades; one moment the protagonist was running across the square dodging hot gun shells - the next standing in the street alone in pitch of night trembling to not hear ANY noise, cautioned by a professor to control your imagination. Another struggled to maintain/accept I have no convictions, I have only nerves and ended by intoning Lord, save the Winners. My Love pass me the gas mask. Pavel Goldin, Pavlo Korobchuk and Maxim Borodin were the poets represented here. The decks were now cleared for The Outrage. But there was silence. The convenor was forced to repeat several times: Now hands up those who want to react against the Government. What about the loss of Poetica on the ABC - surely that has prompted a response inside? An alternative anthem was produced and a group called up to sing it viz: Australia, all let us Rejoice! Were White and Straight and Free! Weve mined our soil and killed for oil. We turn back refugees. etc. The Convenor could not resist presenting a limerick on the life and career of Julie Bishop called: Reef! Reef! Julies Bishops Ship has Hit a Reef! (referring to her lame and nieve defence of the Governments worlds best practices of protecting the Barrier Reef against Barak Obamas plea to be able to come back in 50 years and share it with his childrens children). Time for some more Open Section before we broke for supper and a party in the Courtyard. Crows Nest poet and artist, Edwin Wilson - another longtime supporter of Live Poets - read a poem about his visit to Dylan Thomas birthplace, Olga offered a poem about her mother and Kerry Jameson read a piece she had written which also featured some lines from Dylan Thomas. After or during supper there was the raffle and the denouement to the Pop Goes the Poem competition. A picture of an exhibit in the AGNSW exo - Pop to Popism by Martin Sharp which combined a silk screen of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol with a Vincent Van Gogh painting of Sun Flowers in a pot - an instructive use of the Pops calling card - Appropriation - was on display. People were asked to study this work and write a poem about it. Impressions were provided by Olga and Barvara. Kerry decided to sing to the piece with her own lines mingled with Don McLeans Vincent - this brought the house down. It was a lovely segue from there to the conversations about art and anecdote which buzzed around the courtyard in the haze of bowls of soup, lamingtons and glasses of red wine. Someone mentioned re the somewhat muted Abbottaphobia: the issues we relate to of course. But the people in the Government arent interesting enough to drive you to verse or even inspire loathing! Loquacity on more important concerns ended the night in charge - a fitting finale to Season 2014 of Live Poets @ Don Bank. That chatter however meant the announcement of the 2014 awards went completely out the window. The UnDarwin Awards and the Open Section Poem of the Year are in a separate notice on this page. Many gracious cheers to all those who have supported Live Poets on its many journeys over this year. Prep is proceeding for the formation and launch of the 25th Anniversary Anthology in 2015. The first night back is on Wednesday, February 25th with Jennifer Maiden (Drones and Phantoms) and a new book by Brendan Doyle from the mountains. Look forward to seeing you all then. Compliments of the festive! Danny Gardner, Convenor.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 15:03:55 +0000
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