Happy Dance and Reminder

First off, apologies, dear reader, for being so slack on the updates. I’m focussing my time on the web on another project that will soon be launched. More news as I feel happy talking about it!

The Year of Poetry course is going swimmingly, one of my chief goals was to get myself into a position where I’m writing more than a poem a month on average. Today I had the second of six workshops with Peter Bakowski and really enjoyed it, the group discussions were good and the exercises gave me a pair of decent poems and another pair that need more work but make decent starts.

Don’t forget, I’ll be performing at Speaker’s Corner this coming noon-4pm on Sunday, 24th May as part of the Emerging Writers Festival. It takes place at the Federation Square Atrium. There will be me, Maxine Clark, Cha-Ya Clancy, Santo Cazzatti, Michelle Dabrowski, Dragonfly, Meg Dunn, Crazy Elf, Julez, Anthony O’Sullivan, Marc Testart, it will be made entirely of awesome!

Candy Stripes @ The Candy Bar

Tim Hamilton reading at Candy Stripes
Tim Hamilton reading at Candy Stripes

Well, I had an excellent evening being part of a great performance at the Candy Bar on last Thursday night. Anthony O’Sullivan (of Spinning Room fame) was an excellent host as per usual, presiding over an enthusiastic turnout.

I was grateful to find that I was opening as it meant I would be less stressed and could enjoy the show in its entirety. This was handy as, apart from Josephine, I had seen little to no of my co-stars previously, knowing them only by reputation, and was able to enjoy their work with fresh ears.

The set list for me was: If Poetry, Mokita, Ballard Days, Eulogy for the Cassette, Eulogy for the Polaroid, Tomorrow’s Ghosts, Concerto in B-Flat for Piano and Phlegm and I finished with XXI – The World

If the night made anything clear to me, it was that I really need to learn how to perform without my notes! Apart from seeing some marvellous performances being done by people who were free of having to look at paper every couple of seconds, it felt a lot better being able to concentrate purely on what I was saying without having to read at the same time.

Photos of the night were taken by Michael Reynolds, who has kindly shared them to the world on this link.

Overload this year produced something of a record for me. Five gigs in one week I think is something of a record in the decade-and-a-bit that I’ve been attending and reading in open stage gigs. By the time Sunday’s closing event rolled around, I was too tired to attend. Hats off the Overload organising committee for bringing in festival number seven!