spinning room

Trudged through stormy weather and the backroads of Menzies Creek last night to get to the Spinning Room to see Yvette Stubbs feature alongside two of her talented singer-songwriter sisters. Was a great night, as it has been on past occasions. I even won one of the raffle prizes, a copy of The Penguin Book of Limericks. And Eric Beach was kind enough to gift me a copy of his chapbook red heart my country.

It was my first opportunity to try out one of the new pieces I mentioned a while ago. So I did. It's a piece called 'Focussing', which was inspired after attending a performance poetry workshop led by Nathan Curnow in May (as well as the luck of the perfect 'subject' hopping onto my train afterwards).

I wasn't all that happy with my actual performance, although it seemed to be well received. Maybe more well received than I realised at the time, as I was invited back at the end of the night for an encore performance. Lately I've been trying to be organised and have been carrying my performance pieces in a plastic folder, but of course last night I'd chosen to leave this in the car.

Fortunately I had one other piece in my bag (because there's only one thing I've ever written that I can recite), so I performed that. It's called 'The Facts' (with the silent subtitle 'Childbirth'). It's a fairly new piece, although I have performed it a few times already and had positive feedback. Well, last night I had to pause at the end of one stanza long enough for everyone to stop laughing. That, I decided, was excellent feedback.

The only (possible) negative of the night was that Yvette didn't perform her piece about having (or dreaming of having) sex with Anthony (co-convenor), despite the repeated request of an eager audience member. Will have to bribe her for a performance another time.

Meanwhile, maybe I'll try out the other new piece at the Word Tree this Saturday (feature is Kristen Henry).