I'm about to embark on month long spoken word tour of Canada and the U.S.
I'm beyond excitement about it all and can't wait to be in the air, which I shall be in less than 24 hours!
All the dates are below, if you live anywhere near these places, please come say hello!

x.
s.


Vancouver

Wednesday Feb 4
2pm Wax Poetic 102.7FM

Co-op radio

Then at
7.45pm

The Spillious Speak n Sing

Cottage Bistro
4468 Main street



Ottawa

Friday February 6

11:30am

An invitation from The Australian High Commissioner!
His Excellency Justin Brown
the High Commissioner's Residence,
407 Wilbrod Street.


Then the next night:




06 Feb 2009, 7:30PM, Hear from Melbourne - National Arts Centre - Fourth Stage

53 Elgin Street
Ottawa, Ontario


Hear from Melbourne.

Four of Australia’s Hottest Performance Poets!
The A B Series in association with Kevin Matthews presents four acclaimed Australian performance poets,
Alicia Sometimes,
Emilie Zoey Baker,
Justin Ashworth and
Sean M Whelan,
on The National Arts Centre’s Fourth Stage.
The evening’s program will be hosted by CBC Radio’s Alan Neal. Cash bar Reception and book/CD signing to follow
Tickets
$18 available at The National Arts Centre Box Office and online through
Ticketmaster
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=42371229108&h=H4tjO&u=O8XB0
also check the website here at
http://abseries.org/node/63




Toronto
Feb 7th, 08:00 PM @ Cervejaria
842 College.
Toronto, Ontario

Cost:$5

:A night of Poetry and Poets slammin, reading and jazzin Emilie Zoey
Baker, Sean M Whelan and Alicia Sometimes along with Toronoians David
Silverberg and crew plus American poet Christian Drake $5







Montreal

February 8-13, 2009
Festival Voix d’Amériques
FVA showcase February 10, 8.30pm

MEL versus YUL ou Melbourne meets Montréal
Casa Del Popolo

4873, Boulevard Saint-Laurent

with Emilie Zoey Baker, Sean M Whelan, Justin Ashworth and Montrealers
Corey Frost, Puggy Hammer and The Capital of Plastic Daffodils. Hosted
by David McGimpsey



Going Down Swinging #27 launch

Lancement de la revue

Wednesday February 11, 5 – 7pm
Casa Del Popolo

4873, Boulevard Saint-Laurent
with Emilie Zoey Baker, Sean M Whelan, Justin Ashworth, David Prater
and Montrealers Ian Ferrier, Victoria Stanton and Fortner Anderson.



New York City

15 Feb 2009, 06:00 PM - The Bowery Poetry Club

308 Bowery Street (Between Houston and Bleecker) New York City, New
York
Emilie Zoey Baker, Cristin Aptowitz O’keefe, Shappy, Sean M Whelan and
Justin Ashworth Three of Australia’s top performance poets battle it
out with New York’s finest, a night of spoken word, sass, vagina’s,
spacemen, music and the word moist. mail@bowerypoetry.com

212-614-0505


Chicago

22 Feb 2009, 08:00 PM - The Green Mill Bar in Chicago.
Green Mill Jazz Club 4802 N. Broadway Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 60640,


Best Slam in Illinois! the Uptown Poetry Slam. Sean M Whelan and Emilie Zoey Baker book: 773.878.5552

email: greenmill@comcast.net

web: http://www.greenmilljazz.com/poetryslam.html

On the cusp of my impending tour of North America I'm pretty damn thrilled to be featured at Indie Feed Performance Podcast, straight outta New York!
Alongside my buddies alicia sometimes and Emilie Zoey Baker.

Thank you Mongo and Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz for making this happen.
Have a listen here!

The above illustration was created by an incredible Melbourne based artist by the name of Beck Wheeler. It was based on my poem, 'Dear Elliott, written on the death of American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith.
Beck has been doing works based on my poems for about a year now, after we randomly met each other through MySpace.
This Tuesday night, the 4th March, an exhibition of Beck's work will be opening at the Uber Gallery. The work above will be part of the exhibition, amongst many other wonderful pieces.
I've also been asked to read my poem Dear Elliott at the opening.

Uber Gallery is at 52 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda.
'Hey, Hey, Which Way?' opens on Tuesday the 4th March at 6:30pm.
The exhibition runs until the 30th March.

Here is the original poem.

Last Wednesday Babble hosted the third volume in the Liner Notes series. Liner Notes is a series of readings I founded which are spoken word tributes to iconic albums of our time.
It began in 2006 for the Melbourne Fringe Festival, the first volume of Liner Notes was in tribute to David Bowie's Hunky Dory album.
Then in 2007, again for the Melbourne Fringe Festival, The Velvet Underground's 'Banana Album' was given the Liner Notes treatment.
The nights have been so successful I've decided to run them more often than just once a year for Fringe.
The concept is simple, match a writer to each track on the album and ask the writer to respond in any way they like.
Mostly the responses are in a poetic form, but there's also monologues and comedic approaches.
I'm pleased to say that this last volume of Liner Notes was the best ever!
The quality of work was astounding. Not just from the writers but also from the house band for the night, The Heavy Cases. Their unique takes on Madonna classics were brilliant.
The host of the evening, Michael Nolan, was in excellent form and educated us about Madonna in ways I didn't think were possible.
In the past Liner Notes have always been one night only, but Vol 3 was such a great success that I am thinking seriously of a return performance of this one sometime in the near future.
In the meantime we do have another Liner Notes booked for early May.
Which album?
Well, I have a few in mind, but I'm keeping it under wraps... for now.


Our host - Michael 'Material Boy' Nolan



Phil Norton - Material Girl


alicia sometimes - Angel


Chloe Jackson - Like A Virgin


Ben Pobjie - Over and Over


Sean M Whelan - Love Don't Live Here Anymore




The Heavy Cases rip it up.


Steve Smart - Get Into The Groove


Emilie Zoey Baker - Dress You Up


Dan Lee - Shoo-Bee-Doo


Pretender - David Prater


Terry Jaensch - Stay

"Happy, as my poor father used to say, is a lot of hooey. Happy is a circus clown, a sitcom, a greeting card. Life, though, life's about something sterner. But also something better. A lot better. Believe me."

I'm not sure why, but this quote has been ringing through my head lately.
It's taken from Richard Ford's latest book 'The Lay of the Land.'
Richard Ford is one of my favourite writers.
He started writing in the seventies and came out of the North American school of writers known as the 'Dirty Realists', his good friend Raymond Carver was the best known of them.
His two favourite novels of mine are 'The Sportswriter' and 'Independence Day', both of them trace the life of the same character - Frank Bascombe.
Both of them are startling meditations upon what it's like to be a man.
And he has just released a third novel exploring the same character, called Lay of the Land, which is where I've taken the above quote from.

I'm woken by the sound of urgent fluttering against glass.

Whenever one is woken unexpectedly in the middle of the night the script of being in bed is turned upside.

For the tiniest of moments I think I'm in my childhood room.

This feeling lasts only a second or two, then I'm back, my senses focusing hard on the immediate problem.

What is that sound?

In the space between the bottom of the curtain and the window frame I can see an urgent black shape.

I suddenly realise there's a small bird in my room.

How did it get in here?

How the hell will I get it out?

It stops fluttering for a moment.

In the darkness I think I can make out a wing.

I lean forward over the edge of the bed to get a better view and by doing so I accidentally knock over the bottle of water on my bedside table.

"Fuck!" I quickly turn on the bedside lamp.

The water has spilt over the power board on the floor beside my bed.

I start mopping at it with a t-shirt.

With the light on I look back towards the space where the bird was. It's gone.

Then in my peripheral vision I sense a big black shape. My eyes are slowly drawn up, towards the ceiling.

Up there clinging to the wall, its wings trembling slightly, is a huge black moth.

It wasn't a bird at all.

I stare at the moth. There is something profound about its presence here.

After watching it for a while I turn out the light and try and get back to sleep.

My thoughts keep returning to the moth. As my eyes get used to the dark I can make out its silhouette.

I think about the moth possibly landing on my face while I sleep.

Why is the moth here?

Who sent it?

Who is the moth working for?

My eyes get heavier and my thoughts start unravelling and working back to the moment when I first woke up at the sound of the beating wings, when I thought I was back in my childhood room.

It was the first room I had to myself. I can't remember how old I was. Eleven, twelve years old?

I had problems with my ear then. A perforated eardrum which would flare up periodically. This night I woke up in extreme pain. My ear was killing me. It got worse and worse. I started crying. In the first room I had completely to myself there was nobody there to hear me. I thought my parents would wake up and come to my aid. But they didn't hear. For some reason I didn't want to get up and go to them. I wanted somebody to come and help me.

And at that moment I realised that the price you pay for being alone… is being alone.

Electric crackles interrupt this memory.

I'm back in my present room.

Snap, crackle. What's that sound?

I realise it's coming from the power board.

I turn on the light. There are some drops of water on it I missed. Water must have seeped in.

Tiny electric crackles.

What should I do?

I go to wipe it again with the t-shirt then I have a sudden fear of electrocution.

What if I died right there and now? Electrocuted while trying to mop up water of my power board, with the sole witness to such a ridiculous death being a big black moth clinging to my ceiling?

I turn out my bedside lamp (I'm brave enough to touch that electrical appliance) and I slump back in bed.

Soon I can make out the silhouette of the moth again.

I close my eyes and its shape remains upon my eyelids.

The electric ticking of the water in the power board sparks little white fires upon the tips of its dusky wings as I descend slowly back into sleep.

 

 

Have written a new poem built around the theme of brown. It will be published in a pretty unique fashion, all I can say right now is that Justin Heazlewood, AKA The Bedroom Philosopher is involved in a major way.
Watch this space for further details!

Meanwhile I leave for my tour of New Zealand with The Mime Set, today! Damn, I gotta finish packing.
Will be attempting to blog the experience while I'm there but am uncertain of internet access.
Be back in Melbourne in about a week!