January is all but over, which means that this is the last time we will be checking in with our first Pin-Up Poet for 2012, Michelle Dicinoski. It’s been wonderful featuring Michelle’s work and I am already getting excited about our February Pin-Up. But for one last time, it’s over to Michelle!
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You are one of the featured readers at the opening of The Back Room in February. How do you approach putting together a set of poems for a reading? Readings have become increasingly important in reaching new audiences. What do you hope to create for an audience when you are behind the mic?
I try to tailor my readings to the audience, if possible. But I do have favoured poems, ones that I think are better suited than others for reading aloud. How poems sound is extremely important to me: is there a rhythm that I can connect with onstage, a rhythm that I can use to draw the audience in? This focus on rhythm and pacing began years ago as a way of managing nerves and ensuring I had enough breath. But now it’s become a crucial part of how I read, and it seems to tie in with what and how I write. I haven’t really thought about this before, but a lot of my poems are about suspended moments (a lot of poems are), or swollen moments, and in readings I am trying to step outside time and inhabit the poem in a particular way. So what I am trying to create for the audience is a heightened sense of the poem, created partly through sound and pace, through rhythm and pauses.
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Vestiges
These goose bumps are vestiges
like appendices, whale legs, the blind
eyes of salamanders—
reminders of bodies lost.
Which brings me back to you.
That night was all touch and wonder.
Your scapulae, sharp at my palms,
held shocks familiar and new.
Whoever was charged
with naming the bones
named them surely for you:
the sacred one, the little key,
the cuckoo beak, the spade.
Come back to me
in fifty thousand years and still
at the sight of your walk
something will beat in my blood
bat-winged and fierce
the pump of something ancient launching
something ancient coming home.
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The Back Room at Confit Bistro (4/9 Doggett St, Fortitude Valley) opens its doors for 2012, showcasing the work of local visual artists, physical performers, musicians and poets. With the new Sunday timeslot stretching out from 4pm – 7pm, the poetry section will now feature a short Open Mic section, so if you have a poem or two folded in your pocket, make sure you come along. Spaces for the poetry Open Mic will be limited to 10 and names will be drawn from a hat on the day.
Poetry features for the opening event are January Pin-Up girl, Michelle Dicinoski and Lee-Anne Davie. There will also be live music from The Lucky Ones (feat. Sheish Money), visual art from Olivia Spohr and Tricia Reust and the live raunch of Ms BB Le Buff. And I will be there to keep the mic warm between features with the guitar swagger of Sheish Money to drive it all along.
And to celebrate the opening, Confit Bistro are giving away a breakfast for two. For your chance to win all you have to do is click….(http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Back-Room/170067313082905?ref=tn_tnmn) ….and ‘LIKE’ The Back Room. Winners will be announced at the event.
Date: Sunday February 26
Where: Confit Bistro, 4/9 Doggett St, Fortitude Valley
When: 3pm – 7pm
Entry: Free
