Poetry Sydney partners with Sydney and New South Wales poets to present Vessels of Love over Valentine’s Day weekend on the Streets of Barangaroo, 13-14 February 2021.
Expect new experiences through the poetry on love this Valentine’s Day weekend. Sydney and NSW poets exploring love in all its relations this Valentine’s Day weekend on The Streets of Barangaroo.
Who are the Vessels of Love? The Vessels of Love are poets. They include Les Wicks, or Louise Wakeling, writing an original micro-poem as a unique gift to celebrate ‘your’ love. For you…
Richard James Allen, will offer you personal poetry to touch your soul. Lou Steer will arrow you to the heart of any matter, while Albert Lin will present you an option guide you towards your new love-life direction by picking-a-card. Charles Freyberg is our thespian romantic and will have you in a spectrum of love scenes. Samantha Byrne will inspire you in a collaboration of hers and yours with heartfelt generosity. Jeremy Gadd will inform you on the historical contexts of Valentine himself through a range of metaphors of the most beautiful bleeding hearts.
Each of the poets will have examples of their original poetry of love to handout to their reader on The Streets of Barangaroo and be identifiable by a signature Vessels of Love T-shirt. The poets will showcase their work in an intimate exchange during the lunch and dinner times on the Saturday and Sunday of the Retail precinct, 13-14 February.
The project culminates from a Callout for poets to participate and contribute their original work in January. It has resulted in eight poets being selected by the accomplished Australian poet Adam Aitken. Participating poets have undertaken a workshop and have each tailored their own special performance delivery of their poetry incorporating the theme of love.
The Vessels of Love video poetry series is a collection of invited Sydney and New South Wales poets who have produced video poems, which will be published in the lead-up to the weekend event. The series will be available on social media platforms and as a collection on the Poetry Sydney website.
An introduction provided by Sydney poet Richard James Allen can be viewed HERE.
Program schedule:
1-3pm Saturday 13 February 2021
6-8pm Saturday 13 February 2021
1-3pm Sunday 14 February 2021
6-8pm Sunday 14 February 2021
Location: The Streets of Barangaroo
The event is COVID-19 compliant with NSW Government Health Directives upheld. For the latest information please visit: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Pages/latest-updates.aspx
Vessels of Love: ‘A message to the reader’ is presented by Poetry Sydney, partnered by The Streets of Barangaroo and sponsored by the City of Sydney.
This project is part of the City of Sydney’s CBD activation funding to boost the city centre, support businesses and create jobs over summer.
Vessels of Love poets:
Samantha Lee Curran is a published author, poet, blogger and freelance writer living in the Blue Mountains. Her first poetry collection, As The Seasons Pass By was published in 2018. She is working on two forthcoming collections, and a short stories book – along with many other creative projects. She has been chosen to attend an Artist’s Residency in France this October for her writing.
Charles Freyberg is a Kings Cross poet. His first collection, Dining at the Edge is published by Ginninderra Press (2018), his forthcoming book, the Crumbling Mansion, will be released by Ginninderra Press in June. He graduated as an actor from the Drama Studio (Sydney) in 1990. He studied poetry at postgraduate level supervised by Judith Beveridge, graduating with an MA in Creative Writing. He performs his poetry widely and received an award for his services to LBGTQI+ poetry at the National Art School during Mardi Gras 2020. He gives thanks to the beautiful lively eccentrics who have inspired him.
Jeremy Gadd is a poet and author who has been widely published in periodicals, newspapers, online literary magazines and anthologies both nationally and internationally. He holds a BDA (NIDA) and MA with Honours and PhD degrees from the University of New England and his writing has won several literary awards. Before concentrating on his writing, he worked in professional theatre. He lives and writes in an old Federation era house overlooking Botany Bay.
Albert Lin is a spoken-word poet, musician, general jack-of-all-trades, and person with a day job. He graduated from UNSW in 2019 with a combined degree in Commerce and Science, majoring in Taxation and Psychology. He doesn’t take himself very seriously, and thinks the same of his work. His poetry focuses mostly on love and wonder and joy, while also exploring his life and emotions on any given day. He thinks art should be about happiness and enjoyment, and that love is the crux of what his work aspires to be.
Richard James Allen is a poet and performance artist from Kempsey, New South Wales, on the unceded lands of the Dunghutti Aboriginal People. His writing has appeared widely in journals, anthologies, and online, and he has been a popular reader at multiple reading venues, over many years. His latest volume of poetry, The short story of you and I, was published by UWA Publishing in February 2019. A suite of recent poems, Minimum Correct Dosage, commissioned by Red Room Poetry, was published in December 2019. Previous critically acclaimed books of poetry, fiction and performance texts include Fixing the Broken Nightingale (Flying Island Books), The Kamikaze Mind (Brandl & Schlesinger) and Thursday’s Fictions (Five Islands Press), shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. A new book, More Lies (Interactive Press), in print, eBook and audio book form read by him, is forthcoming. Richard is also well known as a filmmaker and choreographer with The Physical TV Company.
Lou Steer is a cabaret poetry diva, performing her poetry in museums, nightclubs, festivals and even graveyards. She performs poetry to tell stories about seekers, searching for something they have lost – love, purpose and truth. She has been writing poetry and performing as a slam poet and performance poet at festivals and other venues since 2010. Lou is widely published and anthologised.
Louise Wakeling is a poet and teacher who lives in the Blue Mountains. Her first novel was Saturn Return (Allen and Unwin, 1990), and she is currently working on a second novel exploring family dysfunction in the 1950s-70s. Her third poetry collection, Paragliding in a war zone, was published by Puncher & Wattmann (2009), and her fourth, Off Limits, is due out in 2021. Wakeling’s work has been published widely, including in Antipodes(2011), Contemporary Australian Poetry (2016), Caring for Country (2017) and Wild Voices: An anthology on wildlife issues (2019).
Les Wicks’ 14th book of poetry is Belief (Flying Islands, 2019). For 45 years Les has been active in the Australian literary community. He has been a guest at a substantial list of international festivals. Publication has been seen in over 350 different newspapers, anthologies and magazines across 32 countries in 15 languages. Equally well known is his work as a publisher and editor. Australia saw Artransit which put poetry/art into Sydney and Newcastle buses but that is just one of dozens of similar roles: some predictable like literary magazines while others range as far afield as publishing a poem on the surface of a river. The most recent publication is To End All Wars (Puncher & Wattmann, Nov 2018).
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Vessels of Love: ‘A message to the reader with love!’ is presented by Poetry Sydney, partnered by The Streets of Barangaroo and sponsored by the City of Sydney.