WHEN Pizzabox Poets co-founder Dave Munro took to the stage to perform at an open mic session at Palling Bros Brewery at Heathcote in 2018 it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a bit of a whim at the pub that night and because I’d been doing spoken word open mics in Melbourne, I had overlooked that everyone else would just be singing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI forget which poem I chose but it was pretty sweary, I think because it was in a pub it was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the impromptu reading was over, Palling Bros\u2019 owner Peter Pichut said the response was spectacular.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came up and performed, the place was packed with the footy club and these young guys from the footy club they all clapped,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a revelation, he’s not a rockstar he’s a rockstar poet, it just captivated people.\u201d<\/p>\n
But was the conversation afterwards that sowed the seeds for something bigger.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeter said it was great, he loved a bit of poetry and we should do some more of it,\u201d Mr Munro said.<\/p>\n
Mr Munro and his wife Amanda Collins had moved to Heathcote a few months earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’d been saying it’s a great little town, but we really needed a poetry outlet rather than having to go to Melbourne for spoken word,\u201d Ms Collins said.<\/p>\n
A couple of weeks later a group of local poets gathered at Palling Bros and Pizzabox Poets was born.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a pizza box just to write the names on, which was Amanda\u2019s idea, so it ended up being called Pizzabox Poets,\u201d Mr Pichut said.<\/p>\n
Trevor Moore was one of the poets who took to the stage on that first night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe rocked up and Peter asked if I was here for the poetry and the next thing, without asking me, he wandered up to the box and wrote my name,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was there to watch, not actually do any, because I’d never read out loud.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d written thousands of poems, but I posted them online so I never had to get up and read them myself, I was terrified.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Munro said creating a welcoming environment had been very important.<\/p>\n
\u201cA really nice part of Pizzabox is that we do get this regular stream of people who haven’t done an open mic before, some of them have even barely done poetry before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey stand up and give it a go, and that is really a central part of the vision we have for the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Moore has been going ever since that first session and he said the atmosphere was really important.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we weren’t the welcoming group that we are, I would have faded away years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not even the pandemic stopped the words with the group meeting online every month during COVID.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it was really nice to be able to come back together in person.\u201d Ms Collins said. \u201cDave and I have also done a couple of poetry workshops at Heathcote library and every time we’ve done them new people have come along.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not our mission to make Pizzabox huge but it’s great when people discover that they\u2019ve got this talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe depth of what people are writing now, and the quality of what people are writing now, has just lifted from year to year.\u201d<\/p>\n
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