Acting on Ink

Overview

Sometimes, poetry readings are great; the words seductively circle your head before sliding deliciously through your brain and into your gullet like spaghetti-slick eels with the voices of a thousand lost spaceships. Other times, they just fall a little flat. A lot like a badly delayed Skype-to-Skype call. Happily, Acting on Ink, at the State Library’s Dixson Room, seeks to change the way poetry lands in your consciousness.

By having acclaimed Aussie performers read acclaimed Aussie poems, the event aims to explore and challenge the way poetry is experienced. While I think there are poems that can only truly be expressed by the poet themselves, there is great scope for events like Acting on Ink to open up poetry and breathe a new life into the words. It’ll be quite an experience for poetry newbies and hardened poetry lovers alike.

The first Acting on Ink will feature performers Meredith Penman (City Homicide) and Nick Coyle (Rommy, Me Pregnant!) and Holly Austin performing works they've chosen from Mark Tredinnick, Robert Adamson, Jennifer Maiden and Cate Kennedy. An exhibition of ink pressings by Flutter Lyon will be on display alongside.

Image by Flutter Lyon.