CANCELLED: P – -TCODE:2010 Sydney poetry festival [10-12 April 2020]
The complexity of this developing outbreak, in which all non-essential gatherings are advised to cease, and Governmental planning has a combative timeline extending for a minimum of six months – the weighted decision to take the responsibility to ensure every precaution is enabled to protect all from this novel coronavirus COVID-19, that we have arrived at the decision to cancel the inaugural Sydney poetry festival 2020.
Poetry Sydney is committed to advocating poets and poetry and it is with this in mind that we present the public release of the festival program through our website and social media platforms. These connections have been implemented to build on these relations. In coming months of self isolation and social distancing Poetry Sydney will be seeking ways to maximise the Poetry Sydney website by providing a notice board a regular newsletter. To keep informed please subscribe through the website.
We thank all involved and engaged in the poetry festival program for their rigour and commitment to poetry and arts and culture. We extend the gratitude to poets who have contributed a wealth of insights to the festival, the respective partners and venues of whom we worked collectively to platform many poetry histories. The spirit of collaboration has been embraced from your contribution. This is no small measure, and we whole-heartedly thank you.
Together we have brought about an interconnected expressive Sydney poetry festival program. Bearing out the insight and energies derived from our shared conversations we lead-on towards P – – TCODE:2010 [15-17 April 2022]. ps Take all forms of care.
P – – T C O D E : P I N E C O N E 01-20
the life cycle of a poetry festival unseeded
PINECONE: is the life cycle of a poetry festival unseeded. It is through the reading of winged seeds dispersed in a series of poetry events programmed for the inaugural Sydney poetry festival, POSTCODE:2010, that PINECONE has been borne. The germination is liberates the potential growth of an audience in the fertile digital environment 01-20. It is a compelling presentation of a near never document. It is an insight into the potential formation of a literary overturning using social digital conventions that are impossible to present direct in the physical confines of self-isolation during COVID-19.
PINECONE is a poetry festival native to the new cultural environment of digital global networks with its dynamic data flux and distributed communication systems. The seat of the soul* depicting everlasting or eternal life.
We encouraged all to join while taking all forms of care for the two weeks life cycle extending to Easter Sunday 12 April 2020, through the social network digital platform Facebook.
* The seat of the soul is another name for the pineal gland, which is shaped like and named after the pinecone.
INAUGURAL SYDNEY POETRY FESTIVAL PROGRAM [10-12 APRIL 2020]
– 1 –
F R I D A Y
1 0 – 0 4 – 2 0
7.00pm – 10.30pm
10-20: Gala Opening Night
MC: Terry Serio
P O E T S : Peter Boyle / Alise Blayney / John Carey / Anne Casey / Toby Fitch / Andy Kissane / David Stavanger / Bjorn Stewart / Ali Whitelock / Saba Vasefi
Disorder Award Recipient: Mitchell Charman
Danny Gardner: Live Poets at Don Bank celebrate 30 years. Interview with Brook Emery
P E R F O R M A N C E S :
Charles Freyberg and Peter Urquhart
Anton Koritni
East Sydney Community Arts Centre
TICKETED $20
RSVP INVITATION ONLY
– 2 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
1 1 . 0 0 a m – 6 . 0 0 p m
2 0 – 1 0 : P O E T S
R E A D I N G
F O R 2 0 M I N U T E S
I N T H E P O S T C O D E
2 0 1 0
11.00am – 11.20am Brenda Saunders
11.40pm – 2.00pm Halee Isil Cosar
12.20pm – 2.40pm Neera Handa
1.00pm – 1.20pm
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya
1.40pm – 2.00pm
Alise Blayney
2.40pm – 1.00pm
Saba Vasefi
3.00pm – 4.00pm
Jocelyn Deane: Book launch of The Second Person by Jocelyn Deane, Girls on Key 2020. Launch address by Toby Fitch
4.20pm – 4.40pm
Toby Fitch
5.00pm – 5.20pm
Tricia Dearborn
5.40pm – 6.00pm
Mitchell Charman
Disorder Gallery
Festival HQ
FREE
– 3 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
1 2 . 0 0 – 1 . 3 0 p m
Centering Subaltern Voices: Verity La Editors Speak Out!
Verity La online creative arts journal provides specialised publishing platforms for the work of subaltern voices: Clozapine Clinic (for writers experiencing mental health issues); Out of Limbo (for the ‘coming out’ stories of LGBTQIA writers); Disrupt (for the work of disabled creatives); Discoursing Diaspora (amplifying voices of displacement); and Bilirr, Black Cockatoo (Emerging First Nations Australia writing project). Each publishing stream is run by passionate editors who have life experience and expertise in their field of interest.
This panel affords community members and writers a unique chance to meet some of these exceptional editors as they discuss the importance and rewards of elevating marginalised voices, as well as read from their own work. Join Alise Blayney, Tricia Dearborn, Brenda Saunders, Gaele Sobott and Saba Vasefi as they speak to Verity La Co-Managing Editor Michele Seminara about their vital work on the journal, and get a chance to ask your own burning questions and spend some time connecting with the editors after the panel.
East Sydney Community Arts Centre
FREE
– 4 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
1 . 4 5 – 3 . 0 0 p m
Multiplicity: multilingual poetry
A one-hour feast of multilingual poetry in Hindi, Russian, Turkish, Urdu and English. The featured poets will be Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya, reading her poems in Russian and English, Halee Isil Cosar, reading in Turkish and English, and Neera Handa, reading in Hindi, Urdu and English. Poems in languages other than English will be followed by the poets’ translations, and there will be a brief discussion at the end of each set.
East Sydney Community Arts Centre
FREE
– 5 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
1 . 4 5 – 3 . 0 0 p m
Song cycle First peoples performance
The song cycle is a special presentation of song in aboriginal language and dance by indigenous performers curated by Djon Mundine OAM.
East Sydney Community Arts Centre
FREE
– 6 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
3 . 0 0 – 5 . 0 0 p m
Darling’s Poetry Post: Open reading
Strictly no pre-registrations and poets are encouraged to get there early to register in the open reading.
Lord Roberts Hotel
FREE
– 7 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
1 1 . 0 0 a m – 6 . 0 0 p m
P E R S P E C T I V E
Video art produced for Laureate Productions
Julian D Young video art work features in productions for Laureate Productions, for musical interpretations of Kenneth Slessor’s, Darlinghurst Nights and a collection of Australian love poems, Love at the Bar, performed at the Sydney Writers Festival.
Disorder Gallery
FREE
– 8 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
3 . 0 0 p m – 4 . 0 0 p m
Media poetics and language art
A song-cycle performance of Blood in the Water, a multi media documentary work which investigates the space between thought and action, the poetic and the political; where the individual and public self overlap. The work emerges from contemplation of the relationship between the concepts of flight and displacement and the body. Blood in the Water tells the story of Oscar Charles, Hungarian waterpolo champion who defected from Soviet controlled Hungary and wound up migrated to Australia. Oscar survived German occupation in WW2 and the seige of Budapest whist in training for Olympic competition. Comprising film, song and text, Blood in the Water investigates the experience of the immigrant to strive and fail, to flee and survive. The work, comprising film, song and installation, was written. produced and first exhibited by Geoffrey Datson and Annette Hughes as artists in residence in Hungary at Art Quater Budapest 2018-19.
A series of first nations presentation of media poetics and language art curated by Djon Mundie OAM. A spoken word performance is a mediation of colonisation through an reimagining and reinterpretation of Gil Scott Heron’s, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised titled The Colonisation Will Be Televised, written and performed by Bjorn Stewart. A video poem performed as part of Bungaree: The First Australian, an exhibition examining the first person described in print as being Australian (c.1775-1830), 2012. I saw the Sun a video poem that captures the human soul through the light of the sun at dawn on the Brisbane shoreline when the shadow castes the living spirit in dance, 2003.
Rydges Sydney Central Cinema
– 9 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
3 . 0 0 p m – 4 . 0 0 p m
Poetry Portal: Girls on Key
Poetry Portal is a 40 minute event screening of poetry on film presented by Girls on Key. Girls on Key is a poetry organisation featuring women and gender diverse poets and spoken word artists. The feature screening includes: For the anxious, Peter Roads; When we lose ourselves in hurting, Trixi Rosa; Wild Things 2, A serenade, Beth Spencer; Dog Daze, Ian Gibbons and Without Distortion, Mark Niehus. https://www.girlsonkey.com/
Rydges Sydney Central Cinema
– 1 0 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
5 . 0 0 p m – 6 . 0 0 p m
Preview screening: Text Messages from the Universe
Text Messages from the Universe is a film that immerses its audience in subjective states of consciousness they might experience when they die. It imagines what they can see and think and hear in a seamless but fragmentary flow of poetic images, words, dance and music. It places the viewer in the position of going through a journey into their own interior world of dreams and projections in which time and space, and cause and effect logic, are turned on their heads. The filmis inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a text which guides souls on their 49 day transmigration through the ‘Bardo’, or intermediate state, between dying and rebirth. It also draws on the Yogic idea of the seven Chakras, or psychic energy centres, in visualizing this odyssey of movement, colour and consciousness. Directed by Richard James Allen and produced by The Physical TV Company, 2019. The event screening includes a special poetry performance by Richard James Allen.
Rydges Sydney Central Cinema
– 1 1 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
4 . 0 0 p m – 6 . 0 0 p m
P E R F O R M A N C E
Datson Hughes: music performance
With two albums to their credit, DATSON HUGHES’s own-brand folk noir weaves traditional themes of murder and mystery into beautiful tales of misadventure and road-trips-gone-wrong, set to the twanging drone of Datson’s hand-crafted Appalachian Mountain dulcimers – ‘the sound of The Velvet Underground jamming with Incredible String Band.’ https://www.datsonhughes.com/
Sydney Brewery Surry Hills
– 1 2 –
S A T U R D A Y
1 1 – 0 4 – 2 0
7 . 0 0 p m – 1 0 . 0 0 p m
Romantics: an evening of poetry and piano in two parts
PART I: The Crumbling Mansion by Charles Freyberg
A group of wildly imaginative eccentrics twist the English language in a series of love poems, upending the world around them. Hellen fights to save her crumbling mansion from gangsters and property developers in Victoria Street Kings Cross in the 1970s. Vanessa, a frightened boy from the suburbs, discovers the sensual thrill of Hellen’s roomful of dresses and plays her dusty collection of records. She transforms into a star performer at Les Girls. Charles mourns his dead friend in a lush rainforest. The energy of the scenery helps him remember the vitality of his friend, who sparked his imagination in a boarding house room filled with staring portraits and the poetry of Rimbaud and Beckett. Charles transforms into a darkly sarcastic clown in grease paint, but the forest withers with drought and explodes into a bushfire. Peter Urquhart’s original music for viola, voice and keyboard enriches both the scenery and the characters. Set design includes James Whitington’s portraits on screen. A performance full of laughter, pain and transformation, and thrilling music.
PART II: Tragic Romantic by Anton Koritni
Tragic Romantic is a concert of original music composed by Anton Koritni inspired by the histories of the great romantic poets, including Blake, Keats, Shelley and Rimbaud. Anton’s dynamic piano and vocal performance is set to electronic backing tracks, which are further enhanced by images. Anton shares the workings of his creative process and relates intriguing stories of the poets who provided the inspiration. Anton combines his modern Blues/Jazz influences, with a love of 19th century Romantic piano-music to create a unique contemporary classical composition. Tragic Romantic takes you on a journey through a Romanticism of modernity from the perspective of an artist/musician who has much life experience. Immerse your senses in this transcendent musical experience. Surrender to it.
East Sydney Community Arts Centre
TICKETED $20
– 1 3 -S U N D A Y
1 2 – 0 4 – 2 0
1 1 . 0 0 a m – 6 . 0 0 p m
2 0 – 1 0 : P O E T S R E A D I N G
F O R 2 0 M I N U T E S I N T H E P O S T C O D E 2 0 1 0
11.00pm – 11.20am Les Wicks
11.40pm – 12.00pm Ali Whitelock
12.20pm – 12.40pm Martin Langford
1.00pm – 1.20pm Andy Kissane
1.40pm – 2.00pm Richard James Allen
2.40pm – 3.00pm Geoffrey Datson
3.00pm – 4.00pm Datson Hughes:
song cycle performance of Blood in the Water
4.20pm – 4.40pm Anne Casey
5.00pm – 5.20pm Michele Seminara
5.40pm – 6.00pm Peter Boyle
Disorder Gallery
Festival HQ
FREE
– 1 4 –
S U N D A Y
1 2 – 0 4 – 2 0
1 2 . 0 0 p m – 2 . 0 0 p m
War and Peace
War and Peace: Sydney poets on the Australian Psyche; To End All Wars
Poetry that addresses the legacy and influence of Anzac Day on the Australian psyche. Sydney poets come together to read poems from the anthology, To End All Wars. This title reflects the hopeful, triumphal spirit during ‘The Great War’, suggesting that this might be the last war of all. These words remind us today that armed conflict is always a possibility, a social catastrophe threatening world peace. This anthology was launched in October 2018 to celebrate the centenary of the Great War 1914 ─ 1918. Poets from diverse backgrounds responded to the call. Some were inspired by family memories of loss and sacrifice: others from personal experiences in new wars. Poems from Turkish Australians speak of remembered conflicts and the problems they face adjusting to the ‘Anzac Spirit’!
The presentation of poetry varies from a focus on the ‘Gallipoli’ conflict and its legacy to looking beyond war to a future peace. Poets cover the full range of emotion and imagery, offering a dynamic collection and a valued depth of understanding. Poets include: Susan Adams, Seber Audjinlik, Margaret Bradstock, Halee Isel Cosar, Anna Couani, Mark O’Flynn, Andy Kissane, Yota Krill, Cervet Kordeve, Chris Mansell, Norm Neill, Willem Tibbens, Saba Vasliyi, and Les Wicks.
East Sydney Community Arts Centre
FREE
– 1 5 –
S U N D A Y
1 2 – 0 4 – 2 0
2 . 0 0 p m – 3 . 3 0 p m
Australian Poetry Reading: Life in the Inner City
Australian Poetry subscribers and invites present the world of 2010, and beyond. Poets TBA. MC: Martin Langford, Australian Poetry Chair and Sydney based poet.
East Sydney Community Arts Centre
FREE
– 1 6 –
S U N D A Y
1 2 – 0 4 – 2 0
4 . 0 0 p m – 5 . 3 0 p m
P E R F O R M A N C E
Text Messages to the Universe: screening and live performance
Text Messages from the Universe is a film that immerses its audience in subjective states of consciousness they might experience when they die. It imagines what they can see and think and hear in a seamless but fragmentary flow of poetic images, words, dance and music. It places the viewer in the position of going through a journey into their own interior world of dreams and projections in which time and space, and cause and effect logic, are turned on their heads. The film is inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a text which guides souls on their 49 day transmigration through the ‘Bardo’, or intermediate state, between dying and rebirth. It also draws on the Yogic idea of the seven Chakras, or psychic energy centres, in visualising this odyssey of movement, colour and consciousness. Directed by Richard James Allen and produced by The Physical TV Company, 2019. The event screening includes a special poetry performance by Richard James Allen.
East Sydney Community Arts Centre
FREE
– 1 7 –
S U N D A Y
1 2 – 0 4 – 2 0
4 . 0 0 p m – 9 . 0 0 p m
The BIG ‘O’: Festival closing performance and reading event
The Big ‘O’ and Festival wrap party showcases original music and spoken word by Suburban Bukowskis, Adam Gibson and Datson Hughes at the Hollywood Hotel. Spot prizes include a night at the Hollywood Hotel. It is also the Festival big open reading with MC Benito DiFonzo. To register in the open read: mail@poetrysydney.org
Hollywood Hotel
FREE
– 1 8 –
S U N D A Y
1 2 – 0 4 – 2 0
1 1 . 0 0 a m – 6 . 0 0 p m
P E R S P E C T I V E
Blood in the Water: multi-media poetic documentary
Blood in the Water, a multi-media documentary work which investigates the space between thought and action, the poetic and the political; where the individual and public self overlap. The work emerges from contemplation of the relationship between the concepts of flight and displacement and the body. Blood in the Water tells the story of Oscar Charles, Hungarian waterpolo champion who defected from Soviet controlled Hungary and wound up migrated to Australia. Oscar survived German occupation in WW2 and the siege of Budapest whist in training for Olympic competition. Comprising film, song and text, Blood in the Water investigates the experience of the immigrant to strive and fail, to flee and survive. The work, comprising film, song and installation, was written. produced and first exhibited by Geoffrey Datson and Annette Hughes as artists in residence in Hungary at Art Quater Budapest 2018-19.
Disorder Gallery
Festival HQ
FREE
– 1 9 –
S U N D A Y
1 2 – 0 4 – 2 0
3 . 0 0 p m – 4 . 0 0 p m
Song Cycle performance Datson Hughes
A song-cycle performance of Blood in the Water, a multi media documentary work which investigates the space between thought and action, the poetic and the political; where the individual and public self overlap.
Disorder Gallery
Festival HQ
FREE
– 2 0 –
S U N D A Y
1 2 – 0 4 – 2 0
4 . 0 0 p m – 9 . 0 0 p m
P A R T I C I P A T E
The BIG ‘O’: Festival closing performance and reading event.
Hollywood Hotel
FREE
V E N U E S
Disorder Gallery
Door 108, Corner of Stanley and Bourke Street, Darlinghurst NSW 2010
https://www.disordergallery.com/
East Sydney Community Arts Centre
34-40 Burton Street, Corner of Burton and Palmer Street, Darlinghurst NSW 2010
BRAND-X: https://www.brandx.org.au/escac-rehearsal-space-darlinghurst
City of Sydney
Hollywood Hotel
2 Foster Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
Https://www.facebook.com/hotel.hollywood.sydney/
Lord Roberts Hotel
64 Stanley Street, Darlinghurst NSW2010
http://www.lordrobertshotel.com.au/
Rydges Sydney Central
28 Albion Street, Surry Hills NSW2010
https://www.rydges.com/accommodation/sydney-nsw/sydney-central/
Sydney Brewery Surry Hills
28 Albion Street, Surry Hills NSW2010
https://www.sydneybrewery.com/surry-hills/
D I S T I N G U I S H E D P A R T N E R
Rydges Sydney Central
S U P P O R T I N G P A R T N E R S
BRAND X
Creative Spaces City of Sydney
Create NSW
Hollywood Hotel
Lord Roberts Hotel
C O N T R I B U T I N G P A R T N E R S
Australian Poetry
Girls on Key
Verity La
F O U N D A T I O N S U P P O R T E R S
Darling Darlos
Surry Hills Creative Precinct
E X H I B I T I O N P A R T N E R
Disorder Gallery
M E D I A P A R T N E R
Eastside Radio
P R E S E N T I N G C U L T U R A L P A R T N E R S
Avant GaGa
Gugubarra Poetry at Rudolf Steiner House
Live Poets at Don Bank
North Shore Poetry Project
Poets at Petersham Bowlo
Poets Corner at Westwords Centre for Writing
Sydney Poetry Lounge
Word in Hand
Youngstreet Poets