Brrrr here comes winter - quick! huddle 'round our volcano...

Well sadly we've waved goodbye to our summer season of readings (cue big sighs) but fret not! We now have our winter series planned to warm the cockles (whatever they are) of your heart. Live Poetry lives on at the Wunderbar! Catalyst is unabashedly pleased to announce the timetable for our chilly season of poetry open mic readings - here's the formula (take notes, there'll be a test): Live Poetry! LAST Thursday of every month at the Wunderbar, Lyttelton 8pm SHARP! And guess what? Sometime in July or August we'll be repeating the fabulously successful Poetry Idol competition. Wanna see poets beat each other about the head with similies? Maybe you just wanna make 'em cry? Then Poetry Idol is your bag, baby... stay tuned!

Next Catalyst Open Mic - Thursday 20th October

That's right, BYO poetry, prose, lyrics, rants, etc. Come, listen, share, enjoy! 8pm at the Wunderbar, Lyttelton this Thursday (20/10/05) click the Wunderbar link in the sidebar for location details. As always, copies of Catalyst and other fine Neoismist Press books will be available for purchase including the latest release: Porno Ku XXX

Poetry Idol Grand Final

... and as the dust settled, only one remained standing... and the winner, the grand champion, the Catalyst Poetry Idol 2005 is... But let's start at the beginning. Over 5 weeks we saw some talented, gutsy poets put to the sword. Well, as put to the sword as it gets in Aotearoa, namely "would you mind maybe standing over here while I stick this sword into you, mate, if you don't mind, sorry mate, you don't have to..." - you get the picture. That brought us to Thursday 25th of August and Grand Final night, live at the Wunderbar in Lyttelton. The five finalists were: A.J. Coyle Cris Fulton Lucette Hindin Dylan Kemp Derek Laver The tension built as the start was delayed by a late arriving poet but eventually the games could begin as host Doc Drumheller announced the format for the evening. Each poet would perform two sets of three poems, the audience would score both sets out of 30 - 10 points per poem. The running order would be drawn out of a hat and reversed for the second set. The prizes were unveiled: 1st: Catalyst Poetry Idol 2005 receives a $50 bar tab + $50 grocery voucher courtesy of Super Value Lyttelton. 2nd: receives $20 bar tab + $20 grocery voucher courtesy of Super Value Lyttelton. 3rd: receives a bottle of bubbly courtesy of the Wunderbar. Poetry Idol will also get a feature on this very website including one or two poems and Doc announced a surprise for all finalists: a years subscription to Catalyst and a poem to be included in the print journal. Not too shabby eh? The contenders then partook of the traditional Catalyst salute of a shot of Jagermeister and gird their loins for battle... As you'd expect it was as if all the finalists had brought their 'A-game' . At the break it was hard to pick who the audience most appreciated - we were in for the long haul. At the end of the second set it fell to recently returned Catalyst co-host Unkle Travelling Kez to scrutineer and tally the scorecards. Alas there could be only one Poetry Idol and as the dust settled... the results were: Catalyst Poetry Idol 2005: Cris Fulton 2nd place: Dylan Kemp 3rd place: Lucette Hindin Stay tuned for an upcoming feature on our Poetry Idol Chris Fulton on this very website and a feature section in Catalyst 4 with our five finalists.

Very special thanks from Catalyst go to

Peter Jackson and Super Value Lyttelton

and our buddies Jason and Tony at the Wunderbar in Lyttelton

for their staunch support of poetry!