YouAreHere versus the
Australian Public Service
YouAreHere
2013 has ended, and for me closes with leaving the Australian Public Service. This
presents simultaneous emotions, tensions, and options.
The
Public Service has been at once liberator, providing steady income; and safety
net, providing a reason to not push in certain directions. It has also given
some unbelievable highs, interesting situations, invaluable experiences and
personal interactions, but the law of diminishing returns has kicked in.
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Joel Barcham and me
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere |
And
while I have left the office and will not be back it is still providing a limited
lifeline allowing me to traverse tracts of the United States via train, explore
parts of the United Kingdom, and hike across the north of Spain, perform
poetry, and then finally resign.
 |
Me, Joel and Bela Farkas
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere |
Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! versus
YouAreHere
Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit!
feels like it has ended for me, and ended on the most massive high; one that I
could not have planned or imagined.
Things started strong in the Phoenix with
Kabo performing The Night They Set Canberra on Fire to an audience that was intensely honest and vocal in appreciation
of a poem first performed at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! in 2011.
 |
Raphael Kabo
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere |
Hadley
returned to take us through a beautifully comforting set of poems.
 |
Hadley returns to Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit!
on 20 March 2013 #1
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere |
That had all three of
my favourite Hadley poems, including rickety planes and flying-goggles, cabbage
wings, orbiting love, and free range. And Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! yawped in approval.
 |
Hadley returns to Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit!
on 20 March 2013 #2
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere |
Amelia performed feature poems combining writing and performance
that Catullus would have explained using salt but cannot be satisfactorily translated by me into English,
particularly Parentheses.
 |
Amelia Filmer-Sankey
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere |
The
crowd went everywhere they wanted to go. Including with mystery act Fuzzsucker who clearly split the audience for or against (and what is the
point if a poetry slam if it isn’t forcing a decision from someone). The audience
demonstrated this division in the most frankly loving way, with an unplugging of
Fuzzsucker leading to a feature set dance party with the band.
 |
Fuzzsucker at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere |
And
because nothing is perfect there was the absence of one of those people who made BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! what it is, Amanda Coghlan, but to me that BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! can
continue first with Hadley absent, and with Amanda absent, well then I expect Joel and
Adam will know next month what they need to do and everyone will remind them of what
they forget – POETRY SLAM! – and it will continue without me.
 |
The Australian Broadcasting Commission and Joel
at Bad!Slam!No!Biscuit! on 20 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere |
YouAreHere versus The
Tragic Troubadours
The
Tragic Troubadours held a workshop for everyone in the middle food court of the
Canberra Centre, a place that has produced many of our poems. Some people turned up.
 |
The Tragic Troubadours at the middle food court
of the Canberra Centre on 14 March 2013
by Adam Thomas for YouAreHere |
I
am particularly stoked that Adam Thomas’ photo of this event ended up as the
cover photo to YouAreHere’s facebook page during the festival
The Troubadours then went into the bus interchange for a full week to
perform poems, with veterans Skip and Bela beside new recruits Florny and
Arrin. And I think the variety and the passion of the performers meant we met
the warmest of receptions and reactions that exceeded anything I could have
hoped for from people waiting for buses, especially on the rainy days.
Interchange poetry - Tragic Troubadours
from
YouAreHere On Vimeo.
Page versus Stage versus
YouAreHere
I
ran Page vs Stage with Paul Magee and Tim Kent, and was invaluably helped by Joel Barcham. Page vs Stage was an
experiment and became, despite my best efforts, a sincere exploration of
the creativity of both the Sydney-based Tim Kent who was exceptional and honest,
and Paul Magee whose enthusiasm and joy for poetry and performing and listening
to it totally contradicts the cliché that someone in a university may try to
own poetry in some white tower somewhere.
Page vs Stage: The You Are Here Combat Edition
from You Are Here On Vimeo.
YouAreHere versus the writer-in-residence
And
really, Festival Breakfast, you should have tried to make at least one of
those. They were the best opportunities the festival offers for anyone to daily
access all levels of YouAreHere, from the art it creates, to the artists making
it, to the festival curators and producers putting it all together.
YouAreHere versus The End
Throughout all that I have made connections, missed others, was
quite often confused, fell in and out of love, broke hearts, had mine broken,
changed sex to rent submarines (green ones) and managed to yell and be a
dinosaur gangster on the streets of the Canberra. I am pretty sure
all that happened.
Toward finally; one thing I learned from listening to Tim Kent and
Paul Magee was that the multiplicity of voice in art, the making of sense from voices in other peoples’ art, the presenting of art to others, in whatever form, and
being ecstatic when someone else finds something there, whatever voice it is they
find, is the driver for some other people and one I share.
And finally, whoever
you are reading this; if you have got this far I would probably fall for you if
we hung out. Or I already have.
 |
Me, Arrin Chapman, Bela Farkas
and a person waiting for a bus
with The Tragic Troubadours
at Civic Bus Interchange on 21 March 2013
by Sarah Walker for YouAreHere |
Andrew
Galan — YouAreHere 2013 writer-in-residence
