Sarah Broom Memorial Evening (11/6/13):

Poetry Live

The Thirsty Dog
corner of Howe St. & Karangahape Rd

Tuesday 11th June
from 8 pm onwards

Readings by:

Janet Charman
Paula Green
Siobhan Harvey
Jack Ross
& Michael Gleissner

Musician: Caitlin Smith

MC: Penny Sommervaille



[The Thirsty Dog]

You'll recall that I included a brief obituary for my friend Sarah Broom on this blog a short time ago. I'm very pleased to be able to report that Siobhan Harvey has organised an evening of readings and reminiscences about Sarah, to be held at Poetry Live (more venue details above) a week from today.

Here's the letter she sent us, filling us in on the details:

I'm writing with regard to Poetry Live on 11th June, the celebration evening for Sarah and her poems.

Poetry Live has enrolled a guest musician. There will be an open mic beginning the evening where poets can read a favourite poem by Sarah and/or a poem they've written. Then there'll be the guest slot. I will introduce each reader in this slot and invite them to the stage.

The readers are as follows: Michael Gleissner, Jack Ross, Siobhan Harvey, Paula Green and Janet Charman.

Given there are 5 of us in the slot, my suggestion is that we run to around 7 minutes each, and that we try to stick as closely to a maximum of 7 minutes. In your 7 minutes, my suggestion is to select and read a favourite poem by Sarah, a short poem by yourself and offer a memory of Sarah,

trust that sounds in order. I'll be in touch shortly with a start time for the evening.

kind regards

Siobhan

The musician has now been confirmed as the multi-talented Caitlin Smith. The session will be MC'ed by my good friend Penny Sommervaille.

•

[Sarah Broom: Gleam (2013)

[12/6/13]:

Just to say that the evening went off very well. Caitlin sang beautifully. Penny was an adroit and masterful MC. Siobhan, Michael, Paula and I all read our poems and shared our reminiscences of Sarah ...

The undoubted climax of the occasion, though, was Janet Charman's reading of a passage about performance poetry from the chapter called "The Tribes of Poetry" from Sarah's critical book Contemporary British and Irish Poetry - it was really inspiring!

We also heard the good news that Sarah's second poetry book Gleam (also published by AUP) will be launched on August 1st in Old Government House -- more details are available on the AUP website.

•


Sarah Broom (1972-2013)

Reading tomorrow

[& no, I won't be looking anything like this ...
from a booklaunch in 2006]

I've been asked to fill in at Poetry Live (presently based at the Thirsty Dog, K. Rd.) tomorrow - Tuesday 28/6, from 8 pm onwards - as the scheduled poet has had to cancel.

I guess the fact that Bronwyn is away all this week visiting her mother in Christchurch (Chilean ash-cloud willing, that is ...) makes me a bit more prone to drive out into the moody, stormbeaten city of an evening, so I've said 'yes'.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be reading yet. One idea was to intone some bits from my version of the Oresteia in an attempt to flog some copies of this innovative and fascinating work ...

I do feel that I should dedicate the evening to Dave Mitchell, though. He died last week, on the 21st June, after a long and protracted illness, and though he could no longer speak or read with any ease, he must been pleased to see Run Away Boy, his selected poems (edited by Martin Edmond and Nigel Young) finally out and getting reviewed.

He was, after all, the guy who started off the whole thing, back in the 80s. It seems truly extraordinary that it's been running ever since ...

Here's a little suite of photos from the last time I saw him, in Sydney last year, sitting to one side of the Poetry Symposium at the University of Technology, and getting a hug from Michele Leggott:

[Dave Mitchell]

[Michele Leggott]

[a great big hug]