NO POT JOKES, OK?
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18/9/2003 |
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Excerpt from noise magazine |
With spoken word and poetry submissions flowing into noise, Lisa Greenaway decided to talk to two lads who do it best. Justin Heazlewood is The Bedroom Philospher and Tug Dumbly the self-proclaimed "poet laureate" of Triple J's Breakfast Show - for a while there, morning radio was ruled by poetry.
Tug: OK, you might want to know how people make money out of poetry, and Justin and I are now sitting at the Moon Fire poker machine at the Friend In Hand hotel in Glebe, and we�ve just won $15.
You mightn't make any money but it's feeling you've touched people, you've nearly made them crash their cars.
Justin: That's the best thing! You've given them a shot of life in the arm for the day in those two minutes. In the pub the other day [poet] Benito [di Fonzo] made the point that performers get up on stage in front of everyone and put out their most heartfelt thoughts, and they're really usually a bit dysfunctional socially, off the stage.
It's binge communicating. It's binge socialising. You spend all this time thinking, �Oh my god, how do I ever get across really what I'm thinking and really what I'm about?� Is it part of the performer's job to be comfortable with what they're doing, or can they challenge themselves?
Tug: I think that's an interesting question and I think it can be nice for an audience to see vulnerability. But then again it can be nice for an audience to be in the hands of a master who knows exactly where they're going, someone who's so professionally in control - or ostensibly professionally in control - it can be boggling. I've seen performers that were just machines. And you can appreciate them but you want to dig behind a little bit, see a little bit of vulnerability, show us a few chinks in the armour.
Tug: There's a difficulty in terminology too, because I never know what to call myself. I mean, �performance poet� - I'm not really happy with that term, I think its got baggage. I don't like �spoken word artist�, I just think that sounds precious and wanky... there's a new one mooted, booted around, �fusion poet� - it's like, oh, nah, nah, nah! There's been fusion jazz, fusion rock...
Justin: It makes you think of people in happy pants. You've got �poet laureate.�
Tug: Yeah. Triple J's poet laureate. Self-declared of course. But you know, that'll do. It kind of stuck... and Australia doesn't have a poet laureate. Les Murray, perhaps, but not officially. And Les is, you know, well Les is Les.
Tug: Les is more!
For the complete interview transcript check out noise magazine, in newsagents and bookstore in October 2003.
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