Tonight the c word crew will be heading to Dante’s for the launch of the 8th annual Overload Poetry Festival Programme. Champers and G&T’s all round to celebrate the Festival nearing… plus of course the end of the week. Yay! Also on tonight will be heat 1 of the Slam competition. We’re looking forward to seeing poet battle against poet; verse by verse, word for word. It will be very Eminem 8-mile minus the gangs, guns & stage fright. No stage fright here… this will be Melbourne’s poets turn to shine.

The Slam Heats will continue in the next few weeks. Check out the calendar online for future heats. The Final will take place during the Overload Poetry Festival on Friday 11th September. The top 4 winners of the Slam will then go head-to-head with our Bristol counterparts. This will be an awesome Skype Slam Off at ACMI!!

With 4 weeks to go until the Festival, it’s a very busy time for poets, publicists and performers. So much to check out too. How ever will we find the time??

Reading with Geoff Lemon & Felix Nobis at Candy Bar, Prahran 2008

Some of the Festival highlights include:

✏ A key-note address by Jennifer Harrison in honour of the late Dorothy Porter

✏ A five day experimental poetry bonanza at the Glitch Bar

✏ Jazz poet Lewis Scott (NZ) in performance at the Northcote Social Club

✏ Popular MC ‘The Tongue’ (NSW) and The Bedroom Philosopher mix it up with Melbourne’s finest poets

✏ Poetry Pub Crawl back by popular demand

✏ ‘The Whisperers,’ Australian poets responding to the Joseph Brown Collection of Australian art at the NGV Australia

✏ And of course; plenty of poetry readings throughout the city

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller Bueller

Clearly we’ll be spoilt for choice when September 3 rolls our way. For now… we’ll just enjoy some drinks at Dante’s and also toast to John Hughes. One of our all time heros, John Hughes passed away from a heart attack earlier today. John Hughes is responsible for giving us Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Weird Science. His writing credits are wayyyyyy long with Home Alone, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and the Beethoven films to name a few. No-one has bettered the teen flick genre as far as we’re concerned: Ferris Bueller & Breakfast Club rate in our all time fave list. Teenage years would not have been the same without him. RIP John Hughes – we miss you!

Celebrate your weekend

the c word