Spoken Word

Santo Cazzati plays excerpts from the latest Voiceprints CD, No 15 in the series put out over the years by veteran avantgardist Sjaak de Jong. The pieces are experimental, being sometimes sound oriented, sometimes prone to disfigure conventional language, sometimes very abstract, sometimes ridiculous in their humour.

Rowena Molloy started reading at the ‘Left Bank’ in ’96 where she first met Melbourne Poets. She has sung in a couple of choirs.  Studied a BA at Deakin where she won the Media Competition in the Poetry Section, was printed in a couple of zines, as part of her uni course had her poems projected on a theatre wall at an A-list event while entertaining as a roaming performer and facilitated a live, on-line tutorial on queer politics. At Babble, Rowena won an on the spot writing competition. She has been published in an NMIT Poetry Anthology after studying at the Greensborough campus. She has also co-MC’ed at St Andrews Market. Her features include Montsalvat, at a Feminist Conference in Melbourne and ABC Gallery. Some of her day jobs have included Customer Service at Oxford University Press and Commercial Cook at Meditteraneo. Since then Rowena has been hiding in the audience at poetry readings watching her friends become great Spoken Word Artists.

Witty, charming, thoughtful, insightful, unexpected - Krish Prasad is introduced to listeners by regular presenter Ela Fornalska.

Jennifer Harrison reads Images Reflections Gathering Tributes Andy Jackson reads from The Weight of The Glass live at The Dan Poetry longer extended version available at spokenword3cr.podbean.com Patrick Macgillicuddy Alexander (20 March 1940 – 21 September 2005) was an Irish-born poet who settled in Australia. Alexander was the son of Hugh Alexander, the Anglo-Irish mathematician famed for his work on the German Enigma machine at Bletchley Park during World War II. Born in Dublin, Dublin (County), Ireland he studied to be an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London and moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1960. He remained there, except for nine years in Sydney in the late sixties and early seventies. During his time in Sydney he began submitting to magazines. His publications include Thrown Shadows (1976); five short poems, re-edited as one appeared in Poetry London (London, 1979); Effects of Remembrance (1994); Images Reflections Gathering Tributes(1995), amongst others. He gave several readings of Blake, of the pre-Raphaelites, and of Japanese Poetry in Translation at the National Gallery of Victoria. Alexander was renowned as a performance poet. He was from 1983 to 2004 the only artist to produce an event for every Melbourne Fringe Festival. The relationship of the voice and the written word in poetry was an abiding interest for him. In honour of his contribution, the Festival has named the spoken performance prize the Patrick Alexander Memorial Award. He died in Fitzroy, Victoria. His papers are held by the State Library of Victoria

Australian Poetry member Maxine Beneba Clarke is having a banner year, experiencing the kind of overnight success that really only comes after a decade of hard yards. Her debut short story collection, Foreign Soil, won the2013 Premier’s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, and landed her a book deal with Hachette.

Benjamin is currently working on some screenplays including one based on his novel Screwjob, a new poetry chapbook on things you don’t normally write poems about, some spoken word performances and various non-fiction projects.Benjamin Solah is a writer of truth, fiction and poetry, a spoken word artist and political activist. He grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney, but now lives in Melbourne where he studies Creative Writing at RMIT.His writing often has strong political themes, especially to do with oppression, alienation and capitalism as well as through the lense of sport and popular culture. He has also explored the issue of asylum seekers in his work.He is the editor ofMelbourneSpokenWord.com and the convener of monthly poetry night, Keep Left. His writing has appeared in publications including Overland, Geek Mook, The Emerging Writer and various anthologies by eMergent Publishing. He also performed spoken word and poetry around various venues in Melbourne including regular poetry events, Passionate Tongues at The Brunswick Hotel and Dan Poets at The Dan O'Connell Hotel.

Ela Fornalska is joined by Audacious editor and convenor of the melbournespokenword.com website, Benjamin Solah, and 3CR Spoken Word co-founder Santo Cazzati. They talk about how new and younger poets access Melbourne's grassroots scene today and we hear tracks from the new Audacious CD, including poems by Amanda Anastasi, Anthony O'Sullivan and Kylie Supski.

n today's program Ela Fornalska's guest is Jeltje. A vast array of ground is covered, including influences, the migrant experience and being a migrant poet, politics and poetry, sound poetry and Jeltje's new collection 'Princes by night'.http://islandpress.tripod.com/ISLAND.htm- See more at: http://www.3cr.org.au/spoken-word/episode-201502260900/spoken-word-3cr-guest-poet-jeltje#sthash.7NnPkRnV.dpuf

GIRLS ON KEY  – Girls on Key brings together the best up and coming female singer songwriters, giving them a platform and supporting young refugee women to learn music. bi-monthly residency  http://openstudio.net.au/event/girls-on-key/‘Open Studio in Northcote, Melbourne is one of those rare and intimate venues that finds a groovy niche and just keeps providing punters with a great night out based on a simple formula of unique gypsy bands, booze and crepes.’  Flamenco Australia

James Jackson, AKA The Beast AKA The Monster of Poetry is the last protégé of Shelton Lea and the original rock star poet. Encouraged by Shelton, James first read at the Dan in 2004 and first featured there the year after. Over the ensuing decade he has busted up slams, other poets and the expectations of many an incredulous audience. At the conclusion of 2007’s Monster of Poetry show for the Overload Poetry Festival James was detained by ASIO in relation to several undisclosed matters. He was released soon after. A former New Aussie Wrestling Heavyweight Champion, James still wrestlers professionally although recently he has been focussing on hip hop and other allied ventures. James writes about diverse topics such as the northern suburbs, yowies, Gar, Burqas his exceptional existence and why poets don’t go to the police to solve problems. James Jackson has to be seen to be believed. Look out for upcoming promotional movies on Facebook. To find out more about James and his work check out www.jamesjackson.net.au.