The Salt Room interviews – Joshua Bell

For the September 2017 edition of the Salt Room at the Gorman Arts Centre I interviewed each of our three performers, Joshua Bell, Sarah Rice and Tahi Atea. The interviews were to provide insight into their practice and themselves.

The questions were taken from A Conversation with Allen Ginsberg, by Harvey Kubernik. My second interview is with Joshua Bell.

An interview with Joshua Bell

(Interview by Andrew Galan)

Q: Didn’t you see The Beatles play, and there’s some poem you wrote about the event?

A: I saw the Beatles play once when I was little. I used to watch Ants follow each other too. It always struck me - this mess of a thing, this absolute chaos. But it was so calm and ordered as they went about their lives. The fact that they have lives. I used to try and imagine what it would be like to be a Beatle, or an Ant, or for that matter a Caterpillar. Really all of my poems are trying to capture that again. Like flying over a city. I don't think I've succeeded, or maybe ever will?

Q: You still read from text on stage, from a book or typewritten.  Do you ever read from memory?

A: There are only two poems of mine which I've memorised. But I find being with the physical poem comforting. I'm holding it in my hands, and I can trust it. My memory is faulty, and like a sieve. The words though? They are unchanging and loyal.

Q: Subject specific answer required:  You write something on a piece of paper.  Other people, musicians, come invited to participate and collaborate.  Does the original intention become a different trip once there is music and other elements involved?

A:

Firstly, I've never written anything down on a piece of paper - so how dare you?

Secondly, musicians are what poets wish they could be. It's less obtuse, and more abstract. You can really hit people in the feelings with music. Get to the stuff which can't be said with words. Words that are always just an approximation of meaning. You know that the reading will be different from the writing. And I suppose that's the magic of words. They're just full of so much potential.

Joshua Bell

Joshua Bell is a poet, nerd, and long-time performer in the Canberra theatre scene. His particular interest is experimental and improvised theatre. His most recent efforts are being one of the creative minds between pub theatre show, Roll For Intelligence, a live and improvised performance based on everyone’s favourite tabletop RPGs, and contributing his poetry to Canberra Youth Theatre’s production, poem every day.

You can find Joshua Bell as part of pub theatre show Roll For Intelligence as well as the Lightbulb Improv troupe.

The Salt Room

The Salt Room presents poetry in its many forms. Featuring national, international and Territory poets alongside performers from varied disciplines. Organised by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! and curated by Andrew Galan, the event is supported by the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres and runs from March to November.

The Salt Room interviews - Sarah Rice

For the September 2017 edition of the Salt Room at the Gorman Arts Centre I interviewed each of our three performers, Joshua Bell, Sarah Rice and Tahi Atea. The interviews were to provide insight into their practice and themselves. 

The questions were taken from A Conversation with Allen Ginsberg, by Harvey Kubernik. My first interview is with Sarah Rice.

An interview with Sarah Rice

(Interview by Andrew Galan)

Q: Didn’t you see The Beatles play, and there’s some poem you wrote about the event?

A: Yes, in fact I am the walrus – really. No, not really. But I could imagine doing it. Theatre was in fact one of my first loves – probably because my mum was an actress in her early life, and my sister and I were brought up doing acting classes – and I even studied a year of theatre in Norway which I loved. I also used to teach music theatre programs for kids in Canberra. Theatre is one of the best ways of combining all the Arts in one place – music, song, dance, spoken word, poetry, action, design, etc. So in a way it is a good starting point for my life now – which involves art, poetry, music, song, craft etc etc.

Q: You still read from text on stage, from a book or typewritten.  Do you ever read from memory?

A: Actually most of the time I ‘read’ from memory. For one, my eyesight is very poor and it is tricky to concentrate on the words on the page as well as performing them to the public. The other thing is that once the words are a part of your body, your breath, your very cells, you can focus on the expression and the connection with your audience. When I am reading work I haven’t already recited, I try to do a mix of memory with bits of prompting – and in a busy schedule and with more and more readings to give to keep the work fresh, I can’t always take the time to memorise the works – but that is my ideal.

Q: Subject specific answer required:  You write something on a piece of paper.  Other people, musicians, come invited to participate and collaborate.  Does the original intention become a different trip once there is music and other elements involved?

A: Definitely – I have learnt this over and over in many of the collaborations I have taken part in – particularly with visual artists. Perhaps the most recent and most concrete example of this was my collaboration with a glass artist to turn my poetry into neon (for the You Are Here and Noted Festivals last year) – that was certainly a fun trip! – but it was also a marvellous lesson in minimalism and round-the-corner thinking – I had of course assumed at the start that I would write a poem and she would simply work the magic of turning the words into little lit glass tubes – that is until I tried it myself! Just making one letter was impossible – I had to completely rethink the structure of the poem, the content, the visual mode of it and work with simplified repeated elements. I think that for a successful collaboration, each person’s contribution needs to remain quite loose and open in order to have as many possible ways of intersecting. That way what is created is a completely new ‘third’ thing.

SARAH RICE

Sarah Rice won the 2014 Ron Pretty Poetry Award and the 2014 Bruce Dawe poetry prize; co-won the 2011 Gwen Harwood; and was placed third in the 2014 FAW Shoalhaven Literary Awards. She was also shortlisted in the 2014 ACU, 2014 Axel Clark, 2013 Montreal, 2013 Tom Howard, 2013 Jean Cecily Drake-Brockman, 2011 CJ Dennis and 2011 Michael Thwaites poetry awards. Her limited-edition, art-book of poetry Those Who Travel (prints by Patsy Payne, Ampersand Duck 2010), is held in the National Gallery of Australia and other institutions and libraries. Publications include the Global Poetry Anthology 2013, Award Winning Australian Writing and Best Australian Poetry 2012, Long Glances: A Snapshot of new Australian Poetry 2013, The House is Not Quiet and the World is Not Calm: Poetry from Canberra, Island, Southerly, Contrappasso, and Australian Poetry Journal.

You can find Sarah's latest book, Fingertip of the Tongue, at UWA Publishing.

The Salt Room

The Salt Room presents poetry in its many forms. Featuring national, international and Territory poets alongside performers from varied disciplines. Organised by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! and curated by Andrew Galan, the event is supported by the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres and runs from March to November.

An interview with Emily Crocker

In this third interview for the May Salt Room I interviewed Wollongong-based poet Emily Crocker. The interview has been published on the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centre website. The May edition is at 7:30pm, the Gorman main Hall at the Gorman Arts Centre.

The interview questions are found questions, this month taken from a Face to Face interview of Dame Edith Sitwell by John Freeman and an interview of Dorothy Parker by Marion Capron at the Paris Review. 

An interview with Nick Delatovic

The second interview for the May edition of the Salt Room is with Nick Delatovic. Nick created This Band Will Self Destruct Vol. 1-3 and we will be screening Vol. 2. The first volume was screened at BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! on 15 March.

The interview questions are found questions, this month taken from a Face to Face interview of Dame Edith Sitwell by John Freeman and an interview of Dorothy Parker by Marion Capron at the Paris Review.

This Band Will Self-Destruct 1.1- Going Home from Luke McGrath on Vimeo.

An interview with Paul Munden

The 5 May edition of the Salt Room features Emily Crocker, Paul Munden, Brentley Frazer and The Band Will Self Destruct, by Nick Delatovic.

In preparation for the event and to learn about our feature acts I have conducted interviews with each. The interview questions are found questions, this month taken from a Face to Face interview of Dame Edith Sitwell by John Freeman and an interview of Dorothy Parker by Marion Capron at the Paris Review.

The first interview is with Paul Munden, poet and program manager of the International Poetry Studies Institute. You can find the interview at the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres website by following this link.

An interview with Sandra Renew, the Salt Room

In this second interview for the Salt Room, Sandra Renew delves into answering questions previously asked of Sylvia Plath at Modern American Poetry, and Robert Frost and Ted Hughes in the Paris Review. You can find the interview along with a short work from her on the Ainslie and Gorman Art Centres website.

The Salt Room is on Friday 3 march, 7:30pm, in the Gorman Main Hall of the Gorman Arts Centre. You can book tickets via Eventbright.

An interview with Shane Strange, the Salt Room

As part of running the Salt Room this year I am interviewing our artists. The discussions are conducted using found questions. For my first with Shane Strange I delved into chats with Sylvia Plath at Modern American Poetry, and Robert Frost and Ted Hughes in the Paris Review. You can find the interview along with a short work from Shane Strange on the Ainslie and Gorman Art Centres website.

The Salt Room, 7:30pm Friday 3 March, Gorman Main Hall, Gorman Arts Centre

Brought to you by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!, in partnership with Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres, the Salt Room presents poetry in its many forms. Featuring national, international and Territory poets alongside performers from varied disciplines, this is a night that combines experiments, entireties and fractures.

Featuring Shane Strange, Jacqui Malins, Sandra Renew and Paul Heslin.

$15 full /per event $10 concession /per event $50 for 2017 series pass (5 events)

 

Shane Strange
Shane Strange’s writing has appeared in various print and on line journals, including Overland, Griffith Review, Burley, Verity La, foam:e, Cordite Poetry Review, and Axon: Creative Explorations. He is currently studying at the University of Canberra, where he also tutors and lectures in Creative Writing.

Jacqui Malins

Jacqui Malins is a performance poet and visual artist. She was the ACT Poetry Slam champion and an Australian Poetry Slam finalist in 2015, won best walk-up poet at the Woodford Folk Festival 2015-16 and took second place in the State Library NSW Sonnet Slam 2016 to commemorate the anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Jacqui has featured at Poetry in the Pub, Newcastle, and supported poets including Good Ghost Bill (Moran) and Candy Royalle at Word in Hand, Sydney. Jacqui is also the co-founder and organiser of Mother Tongue Multilingual Poetry events in Canberra.

Sandra Renew

Sandra Renew’s poetry is informed by her many years working in war zones, in Indigenous communities and on the fringes of heterosexuality. Her poetry comments on contemporary issues and questions: war, environment, gender, climate and the planet’s health, migration, dissent, protest, human rights, freedoms. Sandra has published poems about gay and lesbian rights in social justice anthologies and international and national journals. She creates poetry as a protest form for gay and lesbian rights, and writing poetic responses to some contemporary events (such as the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida) and the historical context of gay and lesbian politics in Australia.

Paul Heslin

Paul Heslin is a Canberra-based composer/producer/whatever. He is a graduate of the Centre of New Media Art at the Australian National University and has performed regularly locally and nationally, most notably at the This Is Not Art/Electrofringe Festival in Newcastle and the Australasian Computer Music Conference. Recently he undertook a residency at the Arteles Creative Center in Finland, exploring the potential for generative sound composition, making use of recent development in microcomputer technology.

The Salt Room at Gorman House - Friday 18 November

‘If I have to have a poem, then I prefer it to be multiple choice.’

BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!, in partnership with Ainslie + Gorman, brings you the Salt Room, the national capital showcase of the finest territory, interstate and international writers and performers.

MCed by Joel Barcham.

For this event we have One Thousand Promises, Nigel Featherstone, Bela Farkas and J C Inman.
Tickets at the door: $10 waged and $5 unwaged.

Read below for more information about each of our performers.

One Thousand Promises

One Thousand Promises is a duo art project between Francesca Willow and Madison Mae Parker. Francesca, a choreographer and performer, uses Madison’s poetry as a starting point for making movement.The duo aims to create a full, experiential atmosphere for the audience, not allowing them to be passive observers, but active participants in the conversation unfolding before them. Their work touches on the darkness that lies within us all, particularly focusing on eating disorders and mental illness, and the strength to overcome through the power that exists within womanhood.

Nigel Featherstone

Nigel Featherstone is the author of three thematically linked but standalone novellas: (Blemish Books, 2014), which has been described ‘Elegant and original’ (Sydney Morning Herald), ‘Accomplished – an intense fiction range’ (Canberra Times), and ‘Utterly enthralling’ (Newtown Review of Books), and was recognised with a 2014 Canberra Critics Circle Award; I’m Ready Now (Blemish Books, 2012), which was short-listed for both the 2013 ACT Book of the Year; and Fall on Me (Blemish Books, 2011), which won the 2012 ACT Writing and Publishing Award for Fiction. Nigel’s novel Remnants (Pandanus Books, 2005) was published to acclaim, as was his story collection Joy (2000). He is also the author of 50 stories published in Australian literary journals including the Review of Australian Fiction, Meanjin, Island, and Overland. Between 2007 and 2015 he was a frequent freelance writer for Fairfax Media. Nigel has been awarded residencies at Varuna and Bundanon and in 2013 he was a Creative Fellow at UNSW Canberra/Australian Defence Force Academy. In 2015 Nigel was commissioned by the Goulburn Regional Conservatorium to write the libretti for an original 12-song cycle, which is being composed by James Humberstone from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Bela Farkas

Serial celebrity name dropper Bela Farkas is a Canberra-based poet. A lot of his work has been heavily influenced by popular culture and current events. He has featured at Canberra’s BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!, Traverse Poetry Slam, West Word Poetry and as part of the ACT Australian Poetry Slam. He has been interviewed and performed poetry as part of the documentary series Behind the Words and on 2xx radio. He has also performed at the Corinbank, Canberra Fringe, National Folk and You Are Here festivals as part of the Tragic Troubadours. He has been published in the Delinquent and has given speeches on poetry and performance at schools.

J C Inman

J C Inman is a contemporary Australian poet. His poetry blends humour and horror. Follow him on Twitter @JC_Who_Art.

Suzanne Edgar at the Salt Room

From the November 2015 edition of the Salt Room we have Suzanne Edgar with her poem, the Red Chalk Drawing.

The Salt Room is run by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! with the support of the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres.

Pascalle Burton at the Salt Room

The Salt Room will be back in the Gorman Main Hall in March. From the November 2015 edition, here is Pascalle Burton with her poem, Coating the Walls with Stories.

The Salt Room is run by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! with the support of the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres.

Adam Hadley, live at the Salt Room

This is piece is from Adam Hadley, recorded live at the Salt Room on 20 November 2015. The Salt Room is run by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! in partnership with the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres.

To give you some background this is the blurb we have for our event during 2016, ‘If I have to have a poem, then I prefer it to be multiple choice.’ BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! in partnership with the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres brings you the Salt Room, the national capital showcase of the finest territory, interstate and international writers and performers. 

The next edition of the Salt Room will be part of Noted on Friday 18 March, and the next BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! is 20 January at the Phoenix Pub.

The Salt Room - 20 November

The Salt Room - 20 November at the Gorman Arts Centre

Brought to you by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! in partnership with the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres, the Salt Room is the poetry and performance night the Australian Capital Territory deserves.

Bringing together local, national and international writers and performers it showcases some of the best that poetry can be.

For this event we have Pascalle Burton (Brisbane), Adam Hadley (Brisbane), Suzanne Edgar (Canberra) and CJ Bowerbird (Canberra).

All MCed by Joel Barcham and Andrew Galan

Read below for more information about each of our performers.

Pascalle Burton

Avant-garde performance-poet musician-lady, whose experimental manoeuvres with words and sound are usually founded in cultural theory and have been described as an ‘elegant dragnet’. Pascalle has performed at venues and festivals, both in Australia and overseas. Current projects include The Stress Of Leisure, Letter.Box.Stamp.Collect., The Outlandish Watch project (with collaborators Nathan Shepherdson and David Stavanger), the Golden Stapler Award nominated The Lavender Room Zine-in-a-Matchbox series and the accessories label TWENTY FIVE SEVENTY FIVE for The Lavender Room. Her debut poetry collection A Vast Laugh was released through Small Change Press in 2008. This year in collaboration with Nathan Sheperdson she created UN/SPOOL. 

Adam Hadley

Adam Hadley is a story teller, performance poet & MC. With his partner Tessa Rose he has hosted at Woodford Folk Festival and performed poetry about Twin Peaks to confused G20 protestors. He is one of the hive minds behind Brisbane’s story-slam Bad Slam No Memoir, and has had work published by Seizure Online, black & blue and Fanciful Fiction Auxiliary.

Suzanne Edgar

Suzanne Edgar’s recent books are Still Life and The Love Procession, both 2012. Her poems are in many anthologies including The Best Australian Poems 2004 & 2005, 2011, 2012 & 2015.

An overview of her poetry and a current interview with her by John Beston are in Antipodes (Dec 2014) and may be read online.

CJBowerbird

'Moments of heartfelt tragedy combined with raw humour.' CJ Bowerbird explores what it is to be human, writing about things we have lost, things we never had and things that are slipping through our fingers. Most recently featuring at Woodford Folk Festival, CJ has performed across Australia, China, Indonesia and the US. He was the 2012 Australian Poetry Slam Champion and hosts Bloody Lips – Words of Passion, Spoken and Sung in Canberra, ACT.

The Salt Room

Amanda Stewart

Brought to you by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! in partnership with the Ainslie and Gorman ArtsCentres, the Salt Room is the poetry and performance night the Australian Capital Territory deserves.

Bringing together local, national and international writers and performers it showcases some of the best that poetry can be.

For this event we have brought together Amanda Stewart (Sydney), Paul Magee (Canberra), Happy Axe (Canberra) and Zoe Anderson (Canberra).

All MCed by Joel Barcham and Andrew Galan

Read below for more information about each of our performers and follow this link for information about the event.

Amanda Stewart

Amanda Stewart is a poet, author and vocal artist. She has created a diversity of publications, performances, film and radio works in Australia, Europe, Japan and the US working in literature, music, broadcasting, theatre and new media environments. She also worked full time as a producer/presenter at ABC Radio in Sydney for many years. Her book and CD set of selected poems, I/T was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and won the Anne Elder Poetry Prize. She is currently working on a solo album for the experimental music label, splitrec and on a new collection of poetry.

Paul Magee

Paul studied in Melbourne, Moscow, San Salvador and Sydney. He publishes poetry. He has also published extensive scholarship on poetic composition and critical judgement. Paul is a past President of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia, and active across a number of scholarly fields (his broader CV includes research articles on Marxian thought, psychoanalysis, stagnation, boredom and revolution). His work in poetics is currently most focussed on his role as Chief Investigator on the ARC-funded project Understanding Creative Excellence: A Case Study in Poetry (2013-5), which sees him specialising on the compositional practices and broader sociological millieu of major contemporary North American poets. Paul teaches poetry at the University of Canberra, where he is an Associate Professor.

Happy Axe

Happy Axe, solo project of Emma Kelly (Mr Fibby, The Ellis Collective, One Night Jam) uses violin, musical saw and vocals to create layers of sound that are beautiful, unsettling and cinematic. Organic instrumental sounds are melded with digital manipulation, looping and effecting, and all sounds are generated live.

Zoe Anderson

Zoe Anderson is a sky watcher, bird lover and performance poet. She has featured at the Canberra poetry Slam and at BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!, created a poetry-play with Raphael Kabo for You Are Here Festival, and kept her very own journal since the age of nine. Her poems can be found in The Stars Like Sand anthology, and in Meniscus journal.

The Salt Room - Friday 17 July, 7:30pm @ Gorman Arts Centre

Stackhat

Brought to you by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! in partnership with the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres, the Salt Room is the poetry and performance night the Australian Capital Territory deserves.

Bringing together local, national and international writers and performers it showcases some of the best that poetry can be.

For this event we have brought together Melinda Smith, Stackhat, Danny Wild and Raphael Kabo.

All MCed by Joel Barcham and Andrew Galan

Read below for more information about each of our performers and follow this link for information about the event

Melinda Smith

Canberra local Melinda Smith won the 2014 Prime Minister's Literary Award for her fourth poetry collection, Drag down to unlock or place an emergency call (Pitt St Poetry, 2013). This year she has performed at the Sydney and Newcastle Writers' Festivals, and the National Folk Festival. Sometimes her poems are funny, sometimes they are about being female, and sometimes they contain adult themes. At least one of them is all three. Some text installations of hers are currently on show at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House. She tweets as @MelindaLSmith and is definitely #notboring.

Stackhat

For over a decade I’ve been actively involved in the Australian music scene, exporting my experimental hip-hop style from my hometown of Queanbeyan to Sydney’s Inner-West and even parts of Brooklyn NYC.

Staying true to my DIY roots I do all my own producing, scratching, beat boxing, singing and rapping at home in my small bedroom studio.

In 2011 I was commissioned by The Redroom Poetry Company to score a soundtrack for ‘The Analogue Crusader’, an animation that won ‘Best Short Film’ and ‘Best Sound Design’ at the Lucky Film Festival and later went on to be screened at the Museum of Contemporary Art. As a direct result of the animations success, I was then asked to design a syllabus for The Redroom’s Unlocked Initiative, a program teaching poetry in federal prisons around NSW with a direct focus on Hip-Hop. An opportunity which also helped me secure my job as curator/host of Sydney’s longest running mobile spoken word event Caravan Slam.

Since then I’ve been featured on underground mix-tape ‘Free the Beats’, collaborated with world-renowned street artists Jodee Knowles and Anthony Lister, written feature articles for German Hip-Hop magazine HHV, had tracks used by T-World Magazine NYC and in recent times set up a regular live music program at Villawood Detention Centre called 'Rock the Boats'.

Danny Wild

Danny Wild is a visual artist living and working in Canberra, Australia. Danny has a multi-faceted practice that spreads across audio, video, installation and performance. Repetition, routine and suburban life is at the core of Dannys practice. Recently, Danny has presented a number of site specific performances as part of You Are Here and Art, Not Apart art festivals, undertook the 2014 Canberra Contemporary Artspace Studio Residency Program and was a recipient of the Australia Council ArtStart Grant, with which he toured an audio visual performance work to New York and Canberra in late 2014.

Raphael Kabo

I am a performer, writer, and reader of poetry, an author of short stories, a traveller, a wordsmith, a slam poet, a web designer and itinerant coder, a collector of mental paraphernalia, a maker of zines, an incubator of brain eggs, a very good cook, a rubbish actor, a passable playwright, a writer of love letters to cities, an excellent editor, and an ardent believer in the power of Shakespeare to cure all ills.

Photograph by Adam Thomas

The Salt Room

On 22 May, BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! in partnership with the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres launched the Salt Room in the refurbished Gorman Main Hall of Gorman Arts Centre.

Scott Sandwich
Photograph by Adam Thomas

This first event featured the poised performance of Eleanor Jackson. We also had the barely contained grumpiness (wrapped in enthralling performance) of Scott Sandwich. And the finely agreeable Good Ghost Bill closed the night. I also featured, my performance described by Eleanor Jackson as, 'shambolic beauty and battery-acid wit.'

The Salt Room provides a good opportunity to present poetry in its varied forms from across Australia and overseas.

Eleanor Jackson, Scott Sandwich and Good Ghost Bill
Photograph by Adam Thomas

Here is a piece from each of my co-features on the night.

The next installment of the Salt Room is on Friday 19 July, with performances from Melinda Smith, Tim Kent, Danny Wild and Raphael Kabo.

This is a sample of the possibilities of the night from Danny Wild.

Thank you to the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres for partnering with BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! to support this ongoing event. And thanks to Joel Barcham for his smooth MCing in the guise of the Joker, and Amanda Coghlan for managing music, merchandise and the running order of the evening.