I promise a decent length post quite soon, but I wanted to make sure I put this up.
On Sunday night, I took part in an online poetry reading, hosted by International Page and Stage – an organisation set up in Northern Ireland to “bring together poets, writers and spoken word artists locally to make connections globally”.
When I say Sunday night … it was actually Monday morning. In theory it was going to be 9.30 pm NZ time, but that was because we forgot that New Zealand had gone forward an hour onto Daylight Savings time, and Northern Ireland had gone back an hour, coming off daylight saving. So the perfectly civilised 11-hour time difference had turned into a frankly rude 13-hour time difference. Which none of us realised until Zoom links went out, helpfully converting the time …
Reading for Aotearoa were the lovely Gail Ingram and yours truly, while the Northern Irish contingent were Matthew Rice, Scott McKendry, and Linda McKenna (who also took on emceeing duties for the night), and the whole thing was organised by Gordon Hewitt (who, it turns out, studied at UNSW shortly before I did!). I’ve come across Scott’s work before (I may have even taught one of his poems), but Linda and Matthew were new to me. And really good, although with quite contrasting styles. I can see some more purchases from Blackwells in the near future … And Gail of course was great, as she always is – funny, informative, and moving, all at the same time.
If you’d like to watch it for yourself, here is the link:
https://www.facebook.com/100071251303037/videos/418921837748384
(won’t let me embed the video, for some reason).
I warn you though, I did read “Lucifer in Las Vegas” again. (What can I say, it’s my go-to poem from tumble.)
A Dark Feathered Art 
Terrific, Joanna! (And Gail) X💚Sophia