A year’s close for spoken prose

THE final oration of the year is set to be had for the Ballarat Spoken Word regular events, with the last session for 2022 reaching full voice for next week.

With 11 sessions held since starting earlier this year, 2022’s offerings will culminate on Wednesday, 7 December at the Femxle Experience Art Rebellion space at Bridge Mall.

The free event will include a 40-minute reading by feature poet Lewis Allan, which founder and convenor Marty Monstar said will present a Gothic end to the year.

“We’ll have a real ambience with a smoke machine, candles to provide more of a performative poetry reading,” he said.

“We’ll have our open mic segment with five slots before Lewis. He draws on Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe. We’ll have another five on after him as well.

“It’s all about performance and I really like to embrace that in presenting Ballarat Spoken Word.”

Monstar started the spoken word sessions in March after moving to Ballarat from Melbourne.

A practicing poet since 2016, he said the sessions are about fostering a safe and encouraging space for Ballarat’s budding and seasoned writers.

“It’s a non-judgemental and safe environment for poets, first-timers or not,” he said.

“There’s a big scene in Melbourne and they’re very cliquey whereas I’ve found Ballarat to be more a warm family environment.

“What I do, which doesn’t happen in other poetry scenes, is get up and talk to them about their process and insight and motivation.

“It’s about the community and embracing that, and capturing the speaker’s moment.

“Poetry’s extremely personal so you’ve got to provide the space for someone to be confident to share their story.”