Ruby Street

As well as taking part in events at the Sydney Writers Festival next week, I'll also be doing a quite different gig in Sydney on Saturday 22 May, at the Carriageworks. I will be part of some readings organised by The Red Room , at an event called TEDx, which is taking place in Sydney at CarriageWorks on Saturday 22 May 2010 and featuring, as the website claims, a selection of Australia's leading visionaries and storytellers showcasing their Ideas Worth Spreading LIVE to a group of thinkers ... as well as ONLINE to the world at large"." It's part of something called TED which is described as "a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design" . As for the poetry part it will include Johanna Featherstone from the Red Room making a presentation about the role of poetry in Australian society. To complement Johanna's talk will be rea...

"We must be who we are." So said Georgina Beyer at a fund-raising dinner for the gay/ lesbian/ bisexual/ transgender/ queer (you know the drill) community at the Sydney Town Hall last night. This was the 10th Aurora dinner run by the Aurora Group which was set up to organise events within the lesbian, gay and transgender community to bring friends together in celebration as well as raising funds for community organisations and projects, including Twenty Ten GLBT Youth Support and The Gay & Lesbian Counselling Service. I must say I wasn't on the wavelength and prolly ought not to have been there, having been pretty ill all week and for other family reasons, although it was a grand and glam sell-out affair, peopled by dykes, queens, trannies, pollies (Malcolm Turnbull, Federal Minister for Short Showers and Tanya Plibersek, Federal Member for Emerald City) and on-side corporates. The Town Hall, I have to say, looked stunning and the James Bond theme was suitably over-t...

One of the events I missed at the Sydney Writers' Festival in Sydney while I was 'doing' the Sydney Writers' Festival in Newcastle was The Red Room's Occasional Poetry event, conjuring the ghost of Gwen Harwood, poetry and various garb, costumes, what have you, and Pam Brown's mineslec (mini essay lecture). The indefatiguable Johanna Featherstone tells all over at the Red Room blog . James Dean is there, not surprising as Sydney can be like that, and Pam's text will appear soon.

Well, Sydney did Earth Hour tonight: billed as a "commitment to reducing global warming". So, a lot of the lights of the city were turned off for an hour tonight. Don't think anyone else in the world did it. Did they? Annette and I dug out a few candles and turned off our lights and most other stuff for an hour from 7.30 pm till 8.30 pm. Well, a little bit before and after, an Earth Hour And A Quarter. Although the lights were supposed to go out around the CBD, I walked up the street to the ridge around 8.20 pm and noticed that, while some of our streets seemed quite dark, the city was still a bit lit. I waited till 8.30 and not much happened, no great flood of light again. I met a neighbour who wondered as well. I said maybe it's because it's a Saturday and not many building lights would have been on anyway. Anyway, I got to talk to some of the neighbours I hadn't really met before. Annette had decided she would stay home, so she wasn't with me. She wa...

We were slightly upstaged at the poetry reading last night, mainly by the two big queens in the harbour (but it is Mardi Gras month, let's be reminded), but also by a gaggle of kookaburras, cockatoos and currawongs. As well as that, we had musician Michael Atherton on various instruments including the crackle box, the double flute, the waterphone and the kythera. And Sydney roads turned into a carpark as everyone was out till very late gawking at the boats. Still, some came and listened to poetry.

... and don't forget, Sydney bods, Poets Pickernick this evening, down by the harbour: 6pm—8pm, Blackburn Gardens, 548 New South Head Road, Double Bay. On the 324 bus and away to Double Bay Double Pay with your picnic rug and portable food. Simon Marnie is hosting the Woollahra Philharmonic Orchestra and readers Michael Atherton, Peter Coleman, Stephen Edgar, Kate Fagan, Jamie Grant, Catherine Jinks, Jill Jones, Adrian Robinson, and students from Cranbrook, Moriah, Scot's and Rose Bay Secondary College. I'm trying to decide what to put in the picnic hamper (ie, my eco-friendly calico bag). I think a quick trip to the supermarket at Edgecliff will yield last minute supplies. And while we listen to poems, maybe we'll get a squizz at the QE2 and Queen Mary 2 , which both sail into the harbour today.

If you live in Sydney you've probably heard of the annual Poets' Picnic presented by Woollahra Library. Here are details of this year's event. Poets’ Picnic 2007 Tuesday 20 February 2007 6pm—8pm Blackburn Gardens 548 New South Head Road, Double Bay Compered by Simon Marnie (ABC Radio 702) Live music by players from the Woollahra Philharmonic Orchestra from 5.30pm Readers: Michael Atherton, Peter Coleman, Stephen Edgar, Kate Fagan, Jamie Grant, Catherine Jinks, Jill Jones, Adrian Robinson, and students from Cranbrook, Moriah, Scot's and Rose Bay Secondary College. Enquiries on 9391 7100 Free—bring a picnic and a rug In case of rain, performance in Woollahra Council Ron Silliman's blog features a pic of the last Picnic.

At The Studio, Sydney Opera House, 24-26 November, IMPRO-LAB: transparencies , an instantaneous, improvised meeting between music, dance, sound and vision, featuring a collaboration with two legendary Japanese artists, musician Otomo Yoshihide (Peril, Player Piano) and vocalist Ami Yoshida with renowned Australian artists: dancers Peter Fraser, Yumi Umiumare, Tony Yap and Tess de Quincey alongside musicians Jim Denley (Machine for Making Sense) on wind instruments, Chris Abrahams (The Necks) on keyboards, poet/vocalist Amanda Stewart (Machine for Making Sense), video artist Sam James and lighting designer Clytie Smith.

Poetry Reading Featuring Jill Jones ● Wednesday 8 November, 7pm - 9pm ● plus Open Mic.Poetry Competition * FREE ENTRY * Sappho Books & Espresso Bar ● 51 Glebe Pt Rd. Glebe ●

As I said, I couldn't make it to the Picture Show launch last Friday night, unfortunately, as I was being Annette's handbag at the launch of Art & About . Annette has a photograph in the Sydney Life part of this public art thingie. Sydney Life consists of 29 photographs blown up onto canvas and strung up in the trees in Sydney's Hyde Park. You can see Annette's pic, 'Annette Willis: Niki and José, 2006' and others here . A good way to see Sydney Life, I believe, is to go to the night noodle markets, . Annette and I intend to do just that some time soon.

I had the pleasure of hearing, live and in person, the work of Christian Bök last week. He was in the country for work down in Wollongong but was able to visit Sydney for a gig at UTS, for Martin Harrison's poetry class and for a few interlopers such as myself and other Sydney poets. Christian is supposed to be able to do the fastest rendition of Schwitters' "Ursonate". I'm sure that's correct and we got a taste of that work, plus readings from parts of Eunoia , including Vowels, which was cool. One of my other favourites was 'Valuveula', which he called an 'alien hymn', originally written for one of those Gene Roddenberry's sci-fi television shows. The language has no nouns or verbs, so there's a lot of 'as iffing' needing to be 'translated'. I also admired a beatboxish poem (well, that's what it sounded like to me) which used no mikes, no tapes, no technology, just the body, the voice, and all its textures. And ve...

Reading Jen at blue acres and also thinking of the times when the words don't come and when they do. I was doing one of the regular(ish) DiVerse readings today - we're the ekphrasis team, writing in reference to artworks, this time prints at the S.H. Ervin Gallery - and one of the other poets said an interesting thing - that she tried to write a poem in response to a print of a cat. She's a cat person, so it should have been a shoe-in, she and we all thought. But, nope, the poem wouldn't 'go'. Whereas another print 'insisted' she write about it. Of course, this is all speaking in metaphors about process, which is fine. I'm not scared or worried by metaphors. Jen says: "when I'm stuck it seems poems are like equations with one or two possible but elusive solutions, both requiring a good ten or twenty more IQ points than I have spare to find." I understand that as well, though it's not how I would have put it. I think in terms of f...

The Australian Poetry Festival is taking place at a number of venues this year. Full details on the Poets Union website. One of the main Sydney venues is at Sydney Grammar School on College Street near the Australian Museum, on 9th and 10th September. Here's a list of some of the sessions. Sat 9th September 1.00-1.45 Reading: Yve Louis & Michael Sharkey. 1.50-2.30 Reading: Brendan Ryan & Alan Gould. 2.50- 3-50 Between Possibilities : Poets discuss the proposition that good work is seldom produced from a single position. Poets: Joanne Burns, Jaya Savige & George Szirtes. 4-5.10 Reading: Fay Zwicky, Jill Jones & Kathryn Lomer. Sun 10th September 11 – 11.40 A Poets Union Journey into Spin. With John Carey, Jill Jones, Kerry Leves & Les Wicks. 12.30 – 1.10 Tributes: The Festival pays its respects to Lisa Bellear, Richard Deutch, Phillip Martin, Vera Newsom & Margaret Scott. With Craig Powell & Judith Beveridge. 1.15–2.00 Reading: Stephen Edgar & J.S.Ha...