Auckland & Phantom. A night to remember: By Stephen Oliver
10 May, 2010
Driving from the King Country to Auckland on the Wednesday, April 28, 2010, and heading to the Old Government House in Auckland for the Poster Poem launch – I realized that I had not read in Auckland for roughly 25 years.
Not since the heady days of the Globe Tavern readings orchestrated by David Mitchell in the early 80s. Those readings were as much about youthful and romantic liaisons as about fashioning a personal poetry and style of delivery.
And I thought, passing through Pirongia on the back road loop through to Ngaruawahia, and then, sling shot down State Highway 1, to the Bombay hills and the magnet of Auckland, that this is half a century I am looking back on in my rear vision mirror, as I headed toward Auckland.
This was a launch held in collaboration with the regular Lounge Readings run by Michelle Leggett of Auckland University. In many ways, it was a meeting of ‘town and gown’. I must have been the only poet in Auckland who had never up until the launch met Michelle. It is not a case of my being a hermit, just that I had skipped over the ditch to Australia for 20 years in 1986.
An English poet once remarked, ‘ the best thing about poetry readings is the bar on the way out’. There is something to be said for this. However, on this occasion, and given the novelty of reading from A2 poem posters, and the physical act of ‘pasting’ up posters once read, added considerably to a carnival air that made the whole occasion flow with a fluidity and pace the packed room of maybe a 100 or so folk, heartily enjoyed and applauded.
Each poet was allotted five minutes reading time. Poems were read. Posters were displayed, and the traffic between the ‘lounge’ with its high stud and creaking floorboards, punctuating each reader’s delivery, – to the house bar along the corridor, added to an atmosphere of relaxation and engagement.
What impressed me was the originality of such a concept as Poems on Posters (phantom’s fifth rollout of poster poems since 2009) as an active art form, where these become an integral part of an art event, vital, in bringing poetry-as-art into the streets of the city – words to give folk hurrying by from office to office, a moment to reflect and consider, as if they had found a clearing in a forest to take pause. It’s good for the heart. And it’s good for the urban battered and harassed soul.
As night crowded in and people departed, a small band of us, walked deeper into the city night to find a bar café, to enjoy each other’s company. New friends made. Old friends reacquainted with. People came together. It was a night to remember. As I have said elsewhere, “"Poem posters are part of the dress code of any city that recommends itself to its citizens."
10.5.10
Stephen Oliver is a New Zealand / Australian author of 15 titles of poetry. His creative non-fiction has appeared in Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature. His latest collection is titled, HARMONIC from Interactive Publications, Brisbane, 2008. http://ipoz.biz/Titles/HAR.htm Interactive Digital (IP) released the KING HIT CD - poems written and read by Stephen Oliver to music composed by Matt Ottley, November, 2007.
well that was a good read.. and HUZZAH for mariana, poet extraordinaire!
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