Spoken Word

SISTA ZAI is a storyteller who uses spoken word to explore the political through her personal and lived everyday experiences. Zai’s social justice work takes place within the Stillwaters Women’s Storytelling Collective, which she founded in 2011 with the intention of making diverse and underrepresented voices and issues heard in the mainstream. Sista Zai is also a radio announcer on 3CR’s Hip Sist...

Join Ela Fornalska and Santo Cazzati as we take you on a journey through Melbourne Spoken Word's second issue of Audacious, their audio journal. You will be treated to a taster of what the complete album has to offer.

https://www.youtube.com/user/iamkensevenKen Smeaton is a past presenter at 3CR. He also produces The Poetry Lab on Youtube (link above)Ken writes great poetry about people, with great insights and empathy into all people. Enjoy Kens poetry- this is a favourite Melbourne poet enjoying the art of reading for you  

Born and bred in the inner-city suburbs of South Africa, Poet and performer Chalise lives and breathes for the power of words to rouse a crowd and change minds. Currently a writing student at RMIT, Chalise recently featured in House of Bricks. Her controversial, fiery, preach-style poetry has silenced crowds since her debut performance. When she’s not writing, you can find Chalise behind a glass o...

Join presenter Ela Fornalska and her guest Amanda Anastasi on this episode to learn more about Anastasi's writing process, what inspires her, who she reads, what her writing aspirations for the future are and the experience of writing collaboratively. You will also be treated to a selection of her exquisite poetry.

Jill and Peter present poetry inspired by the West Papuan freedom movement.

Abe Nouk is a Melbourne based poet who originally came to Australia as a refugee from Somalia. A few years ago he discovered Melbourne's spoken word scene and found his niche. He has twice won the Victorian Poetry Slam at the State Library of Victoria and has competed at the Opera House for the national championship twice. In this episode he shares his poetry and his life story. Show produced by D...

John McKelvie was born in Scotland just over 66 years ago and has been writing poems songs and stories for the more than 50 years. This talent was recognised by his English teacher at school and when he was naughty, which he often was, instead of getting one hundred lines, he was made to write one hundred words as a poem and read it to the class. He developed his story- telling making up absurd ad...

Join Ela and the first six guests she had in the Spoken Word studios. Each guest shares a favourite poem (or poems) written by a poet who has influenced them over the years. Discover why these poems are special to guests: Chalise van Wyngaardt, Rachael Guy, Myron Lysenko, Sandy Jeffs, Jeltje and Lish Škec.

As a part of the Sampari art exhibition and sale the FRWP Women's Office is hosted a spoken word afternoon, showcasing some of Melbourne's finest spoken word artists amidst the amazing art of the Sampari exhibition. The theme of the event was linked to West Papua's struggle for independance. performers were asked to focus on social justice. Indegenous people and local Melbourne performers wrote ab...

 Anne Elvey talks about her new poetry book, This flesh that you know,  and reads many of the poems. With the themes of memory, family and ecology, this is a warm and insightful anthology. Photo by Di Cousens.

Loran Steinberg's poetry can be observational, personal and is often written as a sort of interior monologue, sometimes dialogue. She has been writing on and off for most her life. Focusing primarily on poetry for the last three years. The fascinating thing that is poetry and the poetry community has kept her interest ever since. She printed off a short zine in 2013 called Stuff I Wrote and has fe...

Join Ela and the first six guests she had in the Spoken Word studios. Each guest shares a favourite poem (or poems) written by a poet who has influenced them over the years. Discover why these poems are special to guests: Chalise van Wyngaardt, Rachael Guy, Myron Lysenko, Sandy Jeffs, Jeltje and Lish Škec.

Santo Cazzati plays excerpts from the latest Voiceprints CD, No 15 in the series put out over the years by veteran avantgardist Sjaak de Jong. The pieces are experimental, being sometimes sound oriented, sometimes prone to disfigure conventional language, sometimes very abstract, sometimes ridiculous in their humour.

Rowena Molloy started reading at the ‘Left Bank’ in ’96 where she first met Melbourne Poets. She has sung in a couple of choirs.  Studied a BA at Deakin where she won the Media Competition in the Poetry Section, was printed in a couple of zines, as part of her uni course had her poems projected on a theatre wall at an A-list event while entertaining as a roaming performer and facilitated a live, o...

Witty, charming, thoughtful, insightful, unexpected - Krish Prasad is introduced to listeners by regular presenter Ela Fornalska.

Jennifer Harrison reads Images Reflections Gathering Tributes Andy Jackson reads from The Weight of The Glass live at The Dan Poetry longer extended version available at spokenword3cr.podbean.com Patrick Macgillicuddy Alexander (20 March 1940 – 21 September 2005) was an Irish-born poet who settled in Australia. Alexander was the son of Hugh Alexander, the Anglo-Irish mathematician famed for his wo...

Australian Poetry member Maxine Beneba Clarke is having a banner year, experiencing the kind of overnight success that really only comes after a decade of hard yards. Her debut short story collection, Foreign Soil, won the2013 Premier’s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, and landed her a book deal with Hachette.

 Benjamin is currently working on some screenplays including one based on his novel Screwjob, a new poetry chapbook on things you don’t normally write poems about, some spoken word performances and various non-fiction projects. Benjamin Solah is a writer of truth, fiction and poetry, a spoken word artist and political activist. He grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney, but now lives in Melbourn...

Ela Fornalska is joined by Audacious editor and convenor of the melbournespokenword.com website, Benjamin Solah, and 3CR Spoken Word co-founder Santo Cazzati. They talk about how new and younger poets access Melbourne's grassroots scene today and we hear tracks from the new Audacious CD, including poems by Amanda Anastasi, Anthony O'Sullivan and Kylie Supski.

n today's program Ela Fornalska's guest is Jeltje. A vast array of ground is covered, including influences, the migrant experience and being a migrant poet, politics and poetry, sound poetry and Jeltje's new collection 'Princes by night'.http://islandpress.tripod.com/ISLAND.htm- See more at: http://www.3cr.org.au/spoken-word/episode-201502260900/spoken-word-3cr-guest-poet-jeltje#sthash.7NnPkRnV.dp...

GIRLS ON KEY  – Girls on Key brings together the best up and coming female singer songwriters, giving them a platform and supporting young refugee women to learn music. bi-monthly residency  http://openstudio.net.au/event/girls-on-key/‘Open Studio in Northcote, Melbourne is one of those rare and intimate venues that finds a groovy niche and just keeps providing punters with a great night out based...

James Jackson, AKA The Beast AKA The Monster of Poetry is the last protégé of Shelton Lea and the original rock star poet. Encouraged by Shelton, James first read at the Dan in 2004 and first featured there the year after. Over the ensuing decade he has busted up slams, other poets and the expectations of many an incredulous audience. At the conclusion of 2007’s Monster of Poetry show for the Over...

Spoken Word has uncovered a wonderful new talent on the poetry scene, 18 year old Chalise Van Wyngaardt. Chalise moved to Melbourne this year specifically for its poetry scene and is a writing student of the revered Ania Walwicz at RMIT. Her delivery is forceful and passionate, her writing is highly informed and aware of long literary traditions, yet her spontaneous personality shines through at a...

http://nathancurnow.weebly.com/Nathan Curnow : poetAfter gaining qualifications in Community Development I worked in Drug and Alcohol and Crisis Housing for many years in Melbourne, where I quickly became numb and exhausted. I had been pursuing writing for a couple of years and so decided to commit further by quitting my job and enrolling in Creative Writing at Swinburne Tafe.  Following that I en...