‘Australian Poetry Journal’, Volume 8.2 – ‘spoken’, features new works by more than 60 Australian poets, with poetry guest-edited by prominent spoken-word poets and curators, Andrew Galan and David Stavanger. They have curated 42 poems, selected with a focus on producing the first in-print journal of Australian spoken word; it also includes one suite by American poet, Adam Day. This section includes a poem by the late, highly esteemed Candy Royalle. Following the ‘spoken’ selection is a separate section of 19 poems, which are all new works commissioned by Australian Poetry and presented across three of its 2018 festival events – at Sydney Writers’ Festival, Melbourne Writers Festival, and Queensland Poetry Festival. Edited by Toby Fitch, this Big Bent series is an exploration of gender and language queering. In a new publication development for AP, both sections of poems are accompanied by sound-recordings. In the case of the ‘spoken’ section, 15 poets have been recorded, along with a pre-existing recording of Candy performing her poem. In the case of the Big Bent section, the seven poets who read at MWF have been recorded.' (Introduction)
'American performance poet Emily XYZ wrote In the opening (typed) notes of her (printed) songbook that she viewed the stage work contained within (pages) "as something to be heard than read, and as performance scripts rather than literature".
'We live in a world moving further from the limitations of binaries whilst still clutching to the need to define things in concrete. The duality of performed and written poetry has been forged by reaction as much as revolution. Many in power are unsettled by the continued rise of a poetics that can be understood without academic assistance. The loss of 'hard-won technique', of contested space. The growing degree of diversity. The discovery of access. Poems as entertainment, as popular culture. Poems as air. Spoken Word is both a new and an ancient aesthetic. A turning toward the fringe, the feral, the first, the unfinished, the unbound, the speaking tongue. Minority and First Nation voices interrogating a binary world to birth new-old lines:
InshaAllah means, there arc many worlds. Maybe in one, you are not dead
Don't make me choose / For I am both, l am more
(Introduction)
'American performance poet Emily XYZ wrote In the opening (typed) notes of her (printed) songbook that she viewed the stage work contained within (pages) "as something to be heard than read, and as performance scripts rather than literature".
'We live in a world moving further from the limitations of binaries whilst still clutching to the need to define things in concrete. The duality of performed and written poetry has been forged by reaction as much as revolution. Many in power are unsettled by the continued rise of a poetics that can be understood without academic assistance. The loss of 'hard-won technique', of contested space. The growing degree of diversity. The discovery of access. Poems as entertainment, as popular culture. Poems as air. Spoken Word is both a new and an ancient aesthetic. A turning toward the fringe, the feral, the first, the unfinished, the unbound, the speaking tongue. Minority and First Nation voices interrogating a binary world to birth new-old lines:
InshaAllah means, there arc many worlds. Maybe in one, you are not dead
Don't make me choose / For I am both, l am more
(Introduction)
'American performance poet Emily XYZ wrote In the opening (typed) notes of her (printed) songbook that she viewed the stage work contained within (pages) "as something to be heard than read, and as performance scripts rather than literature".
'We live in a world moving further from the limitations of binaries whilst still clutching to the need to define things in concrete. The duality of performed and written poetry has been forged by reaction as much as revolution. Many in power are unsettled by the continued rise of a poetics that can be understood without academic assistance. The loss of 'hard-won technique', of contested space. The growing degree of diversity. The discovery of access. Poems as entertainment, as popular culture. Poems as air. Spoken Word is both a new and an ancient aesthetic. A turning toward the fringe, the feral, the first, the unfinished, the unbound, the speaking tongue. Minority and First Nation voices interrogating a binary world to birth new-old lines:
InshaAllah means, there arc many worlds. Maybe in one, you are not dead
Don't make me choose / For I am both, l am more
(Introduction)