I am posting this to celebrate that I officially declare 2011 the "Year of My Inner Wordsmith" !! I have been writing and performing poetry now, since 1986 (I was only seventeen, when I first got up and spilled my words in front of a live audience, in a dark, smokey folk club in Newmarket, Auckland)... You do the math, it has been a while.
I believe in poetry and its ability to touch people and change their lives, and in the hundreds (thousands?) of times I have got up in public and shared my words (everywhere from Fringe Festival shows to friends' weddings or memorial services to dimly lit bars), I have always been humbled by the reactions (and emotions) I have received by doing this.
In 2004 I collaborated with a musician in Wellington, and together we produced 300 copies of a cd of my poetry ("Inner Constellations). We agreed to sell 150 cds each. And ever since (completely without my permission) he has continued to sell this collection of my words online. So if you like what you see here on my blog, and decide to Google me to see what else I have been up to, please DO NOT buy my cd !! I make absolutely NO income at all from this...
Instead, with the recent meeting of a fabulous copyright lawyer (and also last night watching an amazing film by Nina Paley - Sita Sings the Blues) I have decided to FREELY DISTRIBUTE my cd to anyone that would like a copy... Contact me now for more info, either via this blog or on my website...
PS Just for the record, posting this is one of the scariest and most liberating things I have done, in a literary and visual art career spanning over twenty years !!
THANK YOU: Jessica, Creative Commons, Nina Paley (Google her now!!), Lora Mountjoy AND the one and only Billy Bragg (who I saw perform three times in NZ between 1986 & 1988)...
Billy singlehandedly lit the 'performance fire' in me with his wonderful words, passion and political & romantic poet's heart !!
"There is no money in poetry... but then again there is no poetry in money either!"
(Robert Graves)
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