WORDSMITHS, poets and orators are invited to step up to the open mic tomorrow as part of the next Ballarat Spoken Word event to mark the initiative’s move to a new monthly schedule.<\/p>\n
Each event will be held from the first Saturday of the month at 2pm, a departure from previous Ballarat Spoken Word evenings which were held on the first Wednesday of the month at 7pm.<\/p>\n
Founder and convenor Marty Monstar said there are three main factors to the change.<\/p>\n
“One is safety which is paramount of anyone being out on the streets at 10pm at night, and for people to get home safely as well,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Our numbers drop a lot over winter because people stay home. The focus is also to get more people coming down who can’t make evenings.<\/p>\n
“The third reason is to align Ballarat Spoken Word on a Saturday with the other regional poetry events like Woodend, Castlemaine, Bendigo, all on alternative weeks.”<\/p>\n
Tomorrow’s event will showcase local wordsmith Megan J Riedl as feature poet.<\/p>\n
She said she has some exciting, intimate content to deliver.<\/p>\n
“The pieces I’ve been writing lately I haven’t performed before to an audience so this is a nice opportunity to give people an outing,” she said.<\/p>\n
“A lot of my new works are about my father who passed away in September last year. Some of them are pretty raw and emotional.<\/p>\n
“I’m looking forward to sharing them because it takes them from being something personal I use for a catharsis and into something I can share.<\/p>\n
“There’s always one person in the room who just really needed to hear that today.”<\/p>\n
Riedl’s set will also include a listen at her current project Unspoken: The Ballarat Poetess, developed as part of Punctum and the City of Ballarat’s Seedpod program, which blends original material with the work of 19th-century poet Ellen Young.<\/p>\n
Monstar aims to have four featured poets in this year’s Ballarat Spoken Word program.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow’s event will run from 2pm to 5pm at TBH Studios.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WORDSMITHS, poets and orators are invited to step up to the open mic tomorrow as part of the next Ballarat Spoken Word event to mark the initiative’s move to a new monthly schedule. Each event will be held from the first Saturday of the month at 2pm, a departure from previous Ballarat Spoken Word evenings […]<\/p>\n