Utan Kayu International Literary Biennale and TERRA: A Bilingual Anthology from WordStorm

I'm very pleased to announce that this Wednesday I'm flying to Indonesia to participate in the Utan Kayu International Literary Biennale. This is a very exciting festival taking place from the 23rd-30th August featuring some of Indonesia's finest poets and authors as well as visiting writers from many other countries. Events are taking part in Jakarta and Magelang. I feel very privileged to be asked to be involved and I give many thanks to the director of the festival, Sitok Srengenge, an incredible poet himself. I also must give thanks to Sandra Thibodeaux who first introduced me to Sitok at Wordstorm, the Darwin Writers Festival in 2005. Sandra has since become director of Wordstorm herself and has recently overseen the publication of TERRA: A Bilingual Anthology from Wordstorm.




My poetic tribute to singer songwriter Elliot Smith, called Dear Elliot, has been published in this anthology and for the first time ever my work has been translated into Indonesian.

TERRA contributors include the illustrious, iconic and emerging (in alphabetic order): Kaye Aldenhoven, Nukila Amal, Peter Bakowski, BenEzra, Mark Bowling, Jane Camens, Ze’sopol Caminha, Linda Christanty, MTC Cronin, Gregory Day, Marian Devitt, Peter Docker, Nick Earls, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Melchior dias Fernandes, Kieran Finnane, Richard J. Frankland, Pru Gell, Dorothea Rosa Herliany, Alec Kruger & Gerard Waterford, Frank Moorhouse, Chris Mansell, Miles Merrill, Meg Mooney, Romaine Moreton, Leonie Norrington, Graham Nunn, Alvin Pang, Helen Pavlin, Dorothy Porter, Iswadi Pratama, Leni Shilton, Milena da Silva, Abe Barreto Soares, Sitok Srengenge, Jared Thomas, Triyanto Triwikromo, Ayu Utami, Alana Valentine, Zevonia Vieira, Sam Wagan Watson, Sean M Whelan, Terry Whitebeach and Jacquie Williams.


For more details about the book visit the NT Writers Centre website.


To see the full program of the Utan Kayu International Literary Biennale go here.

Under Star Poets at Federation Square.

I'm performing with The Mime Set at an event called Under Star Poets tonight. This is at the lovely BMW Edge theater in Federation Square. Also appearing with us will be Emilie Zoey Baker. The gig kicks off at 7pm and runs until 10pm.
Also appearing will

Sugarfree Masons

Andy White

MiteyKo (aka Allan Boyd and Kevin Gillam)

Trisnasari

Ben Ezra

Lish and Steve O’Prey

Belfast Poets

Reading at Thangs Cafe, East Brunswick, 16th August

I'm doing a free reading at Thangs Cafe on Thursday night. 502 Lygon Street East Brunswick. There's also an open mic and every open mic reader gets a free glass of wine!
They also do pretty good grub there I'm told.
I'll be debuting a brand new story too.

Reading at The Blue Velvet Bar - Overload Poetry Festival

I'm doing a pretty special reading tomorrow night at the Blue Velvet Bar, 60 Smith Street, Collingwood, as part of the Overload Poetry Festival. Haven't done a reading without the band in Melbourne for a while. I'm also debuting a brand new piece of writing that will be appearing in the next issue of Voiceworks, called 'You Voted Zebra, I Voted Cow.'
It's a fantastic lineup of other readers too and I can't describe them any better than the convenor of the event, Mr Geoff Lemon.
So, here's his personal breakdown on the whole event in his own words below.

Nanoarts.
7:30
Thursday 9th August.

The readers.

ðO
Transliterated as PiO for those who never did Year 10 trigonometry, this man is an absolute legend of the poetry world. His business card simply reads "World Famous Poet", and frankly, that's enough. My father used to watch ðO dominating poetry readings back in the early 70s, and we're still watching him today. ðO was writing in dialectical English two decades before Irvine Welsh was hailed as 'revolutionary' for Trainspotting. This is his only listed performance for the Overload Festival. Do not miss it.

Thomas, Jack of Hearts (aka Citizen Tom, aka Tom Keily) (NSW)
Citizen Tom is jetting down from Sydney on the day itself to perform under his new title. If Prince could do it, why not Tom? This gentleman is a prince, a jack, a knave of spoken word, and captained Housecat Havoc to back-to-back Australian Poetry Slam victories. Hispoems are richly lyrical, shot through with the rhythm, rhyme and flow of Australian hip-hop. A master of the fusion of these two great arts.

Emilie Zoey Baker
EZB is Melbourne's First Lady of Sass, a comedic tour de force, and last year's winner of the Nimbin Poetry Cup. Some of you would have seen her storming through the Melbourne Slam at Glitch last December, some would've seen at her at Babble under the guise of DJ I Was Young and I Needed the Money. Some wouldn't have seen her at all cos she's just too damn fast. Here's your chance. Check out some of her poems with music at myspace.com/emiliezoeybaker

Sean M. Whelan
Sean's poetry has been going gangbusters over the past year since his teaming up with rock band The Mime Set, including the rare privilege for a poet of going on tour. In fact, such has been the buzz that we haven't seen him reading solo for a long long time, and his regular gig Babble had to go into hibernation. Now we get to see the man solo, unadorned, in the raw essence of his manhood. Eww.

Meg Dunn
One of Melbourne's loveliest. Poet, artist, and winner of Best Spoken Word Performance at the 2002 Melbourne Fringe. Some would describe her as impish, some as sweet. If she didn't like it, she'd stab you in the kidney. But in such a charming way you'd love her nonetheless.

Preacherman Says (aka Phil Norton)
Part beat poet soulman, part blues troubadour, part film noir hero, Phil Norton mixes poetry with music, visuals and anything else he can find. He even featured on a couple of tracks on sonicanimation's last album. At Blue Velvet, Phil will don his new alter ego for the first time just for us. Who knows what to expect? I have no idea.

Helen Child (WA)
Jim Morrison said, the West is the best. We have one of their finest. Helen is a veteran performer, poet and comedian with a definite penchant for the wrong, the twisted and the macabre. For us...who knows? She might do poems about why pigeons are pretty. But I wouldn't count on it.

Plus the usual hosting and cameos from myself, and you may even catch a glimpse of Mr. Overload Director Steve Smart in the flesh.

With the long line-up, we'll be starting earlier, the sets will be shorter, and things will bang through at a dynamic pace. Entry by donation in the five dollar region.

Doors open at 7:30, drink specials from the word go, and we will kick off a bit after 8:00. PLEASE come by then, or you'll miss some of the awesomeness. And there's really nothing on that bill that you can afford to miss. I'm excited. You should be. Hope to see you all packed in (another reason to get in early, if you want a seat).

Much love to everyone,

Geoff Lemon

Our first full band gig in 10 months. We're baaaaack!

This Wed night, the 8th August, I'll be playing my first full band gig in Melbourne with The Mime Set since last year's Fringe Festival!
But wait, there's more.
We'll be supporting the incredible Justin Heazlewood. If you don't take my word that he's incredible, then run don't walk to his myspace page right now, or take a look here and you'll see that I'm right.
And here's something else to sweeten the deal, Emilie Zoey Baker will also be making a guest appearance as a sneak preview of the show we're all writing together for this year's Fringe Festival.
So, in short, this will be a CRACKER of a gig.
Where?
The Empress Hotel.
714 Nicholson Street, Nth Fitzroy.
8:30pm start
and it's only $8.