Whoever made up the phrase, “Getting there is half the battle,” obviously was a person who has attempted to fly from New York City to Melbourne, Australia in one day. After 24.5 hours in the air, including one grueling 17.5 hour leg over the Pacific Ocean, and 14 hours of time difference later (that’s right: 1 o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday in Melbourne is 11 pm the night before, Monday in New York!)... I arrived in the Land Down Under with my instructions being “Look for the man in the yellow sweater! Look for the man in the yellow sweater!” And when I popped out of customs, there he was: Robert Hughes, a six-and-a-half-foot man wearing a pullover the color of a New York taxicab, the man in charge of Gasworks, the amazing organization that had brought me there.

Gasworks is an independent community-based inner city suburban arts centre built around an 8-acre park situated two miles from the Melbourne GPO (population 3 million), in the Australian state of Victoria, on the site of an old gasworks plant (where they used to convert coal to energy)... Now that I’m done with the technical explanation, let me tell you something: the place is amazing. It’s everything you could hope for in a multi-arts center. Resting in the middle of a gorgeous green park, the complex includes two theatres, a gallery space, a darkroom, wet and dry studios, a kiln, a ceramics studio, a dog park (who knew the dogs in Australia would be so tiny!), a picnic area, a playground, a café and a bookstore that emphasizes children’s books with amazing illustrations. The staff are energetic, arts-loving Aussies, all between the ages of 25 and 45, and the calendar is booked full with diverse festivals and shows.

I was brought out to be a part of the New Voices conference, whose purpose was to stimulate product development initiatives for mid-range performing arts venues, particularly in the context of new works and emerging artists, because Victoria, the part of Australia which Melbourne is located, has recently enjoyed a significant growth in construction of mid-sized local venues that are now coming online and looking for “product.” Or at least that’s the spiel they gave me.

All I knew was that I was brought down to speak on the American phenomenon of the Poetry Slam, and to perform in and host what could be the first slam ever in Melbourne. And of course, to buy as much platypus memorabilia as I could.

Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

Next page > Meeting the Aussie poets > page 1, 2, 3

Cristin is slammaster and host of the Urbana Poetry Series in New York City. She is also our New York correspondent for the About Poetry Museletter & the author of several previous feature articles here: The Wild Party On the Stage, Extreme Poetry in the North Woods & 60 Minutes: The Poets Slam Back!.