Review More Poetry: In 2009, I encouraged (read: bullied)a relationship between the Overload Poetry Festival and Overland Literary Magazine. In exchange for free entry to festival events, a team of 7 reviewers covered Melbourne's only poetry festival, posting scene reports, vox pops, interviews and reviews on the Overland blog. Overland Overloaded was madness. Absolute madness. For three weeks, I barely slept with all the reviewing, uploading & editing. Still, the project was an overall success and initiated much discussion about poetry. You can read some of my favourite posts in the blog archives here, here and here. For many Melbourne poets Overland Overloaded was the first time their work had been reviewed. In 2010, in addition to hopefully running several similar projects (as time permits), I hope to post more poetry reviews on this blog - of both written spoken word poetry. I'm hoping I'll be able to make it a regular weekly thing, but we'll see...please drop me a comment with any suggestions for reviews (preferably of work by Australian poets, but other suggestions are also welcome).
Looking forward to reading your roaring reviews and poetry this year Maxine ;)
ReplyDeleteOverland Overloaded was a great project to be involved with Maxine. It blows my mind when you say that many of the poets had never been reviewed before. Some of them might have performed for a decade or more and received no wider attention. Consider that all the major magazines have at least some internet presence but have done so little (if anything) to cultivate or comment on what’s happening on poetry’s front lines. I could talk about what they could do with their actual magazines to promote, or simply report on the Spoken Word scene, but what would be the point? Performance poetry, with the exception of GDS, might as well not exist for them. For me, it was an eye-opening experience to find a whole culture and community driving on, despite this appalling apathy from the literary establishment. And it doesn’t make sense either , no matter which way you look at it. The people that take verse to the stages of small pubs and clubs around Australia, and that attend those kinds of grassroots events, are the most passionate lovers of poetry in the country. There are opportunities to grow not only their readership by becoming responsive to this passion, but a duty actually, to develop Australian poetry, (if they profess to have any passion for verse themselves). At a bare minimum, I think every major literary magazine in the country should host a Spoken Word event followed by a CD/DVD Issue of their mag. All of them should have a column dedicated to reporting general events like Slam Comps and their results. I’m talking minimums. I suppose this is some kind of Science Fiction. I’m imagining a world that can’t exist. But at least there a people like you Maxine, that generate events like Overland Overloaded, and continue to look for ways to bring that passion to the attention of the wider world.
ReplyDeleteyr awesome maxine - being one of those who has benefitted (greatly) from yr work through overland in 2009 i gotta just urge you on to push for other poetic voices through here (slam up) and there. yr generosity shines.
ReplyDeleteThanks Alec. Of course, one of the best things about Overland Overloaded was the start of a brilliant collaboration...though I didn't know it then, of course. Poetry works in completely logical an unmysterious ways.
ReplyDeleteJason - you were the beneficiary because 'Richie' is brilliant. I just know that one day it will be hailed as a literary breakthough. And I don't praise lightly. I'm devastated your Twitter novel is coming to an end.