World Poetry Day
- 19 Mar 2015
We asked Queensland Poetry Festival Co-Directors Annie Te Whiu and David Stavanger what they are planning for World Poetry Day on 21 March…
What draws people to poetry in your experience?
The potential for it to be dangerous. Honesty mixed with creative deceit. Concrete and abstract. The rhythm of the street, your street, the one you lived on as a child. The mythology of romanticism. The conceptual leaps. Falling into blank space. Sweat and a hand held microphone. The roar of the darkest room. The lack of constraint. The immediacy. A common human need to have your own ideas reflected back but also challenged. The simple love of language and it’s musicality.
In your opinion, can poetry contribute to community cohesion?
Yes, far more than a sausage sizzle. In a world increasingly built by IKEA, poetry offers a place to call home founded on something solid, something ancient, something that will hold you. In Brisbane the amount of free poetry events put on by local poets, who are truly passionate, proactive and who operate under a real DIY philosophy, remind us that we are part of a community based on contributing. We both came from community arts practice and know how misused the term can be. But these poets create public events and encourage anyone to participate, fostering a diversity of writing and a platform for fringe voices. Events such as Speedpoets, Ruckus Slam, Poetic Therapy, Poetry Open Words, Pocket, Kurilpa Poets and Bad!Slam!No!Memoir! are in many ways the heart from where world class events such as the Queensland Poetry Festival blooms – they are called ‘open’ mics for good reason. These are places where ideas can be born without fear, people can reveal themselves via words and express themselves without censor. There is no uniform required to be a part of the poetry community (often no shoes required too).
Why is World Poetry Day important? Is the Queensland Poetry Festival planning anything to mark World Poetry Day?
Now in its 16th year, World Poetry Day is described by UNESCO as a day that shows the “importance of poetry as a universal art; a tool for dialogue, revealing that people around the world share the same questions and feelings”.
More importantly to us here at Queensland Poetry Festival (QPF), the day illuminates that poetry has no real borders and increasingly is a democratised form that is of and belongs to the people, if they want it… plus it deserves a birthday like the rest of us.
We decided to throw the full party this year, short of a bad DJ and jumping castle. QPF’s World Poetry Day celebrations are being co-hosted at Brisbane Square Library and we have curated everything from Youth Slams, local spoken word band Rivermouth live with a truly ‘open’ Open Mic, poetry films, interactive writing installations, renowned local poets Pascalle Burton and Nathan Shepherdson presenting their theatre show UNSPOOL and flash pop-up performances by emerging Ruckus Slam poets throughout the library. The icing on the cake – the Thomas Shapcott Reading – featuring eight prior Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Prize Winners reading his work on his actual 80th birthday. Thomas himself will be there with his partner, poet Judith Rodriguez, who will also do a feature set. There are no words to describe what it means to have two of Queensland’s cultural literary institutions there in the flesh for this event.
If you can’t get to our World Poetry Day at Brisbane Square Library, we recommend you do these three things:
- At breakfast, read a poem
- At lunch, write a poem
- At dinner, have a full glass of full-bodied red wine.
World Poetry Day presented by Queensland Poetry Festival at Brisbane Square Library on Saturday 21st March from 11am-3pm. For the full events program https://www.facebook.com/events/351488078389399/
Anne-Marie Te Whiu is a Brisbane born and bred cultural producer who has worked for organisations such as Woodford Folk Festival, Zillmere Multicultural Festival, BEMAC, Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Museum of Brisbane and State Library of Queensland over the past twelve years. She is a keen creative-arts collaborator and values the breadth and diversity of talent within her home town which culminated in Anne-Marie creating and directing The Home Festival.
David Stavanger is a poet, writer, and cultural producer who has been an active part of the Brisbane poetry community for the past ten years. In 2013 he won the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Award, resulting in the release of The Special (UQP), his first full-length collection of poetry, and at the 2014 Queensland Literary Awards he was awarded a Queensland Writing Fellowship to develop his next two collections. David is also sometimes known as Green Room-nominated spoken word artist Ghostboy, and established the thriving Queensland poetry slam scene via his program work with the State Library of Queensland and Woodford Folk Festival. Find him at www.davidstavanger.com.
Feature image: UN/SPOOL by Pascalle Burton and Nathan Shepherdson; Image by Ian Powne