The Return of the Basement Poetic in Lyttelton

Basement Poetic and Socrates Session
7pm Sunday 27th June
$10 waged, $8 unwaged


The perfect end to the Festival of Lights, bring your mind, your wit and your taste for wine to the cozy environs of The Basement! Join local luminaries of the literary ether for a night of poetry and spoken word, and have a go yourself during the open mic. Then 'speak to the topic' in the Socrates Session - a chance to air your own well-shaped arguments on a topic given on the night.

A little birdie told me the topic is CREDIT for the Socrates Session - forewarned is forearmed!

But I could be wrong...

Funds raised go towards supporting Volcano Radio - Community radio as it should be - LOCAL & LIVE!

Poetry keeps you cosy

Wow. Just a quick note about two things. First, Catalyst in May was an absolute rip-snorter. The kinda night that keeps Doc and I excited and determined to keep the open mic running for all you poets out there. Big crowd, totally up for it and some great poetry too. I've got some pics coming soon - let's keep the momentum going for June! And keep in mind the ideas about a collaboration with Poetic Justice in Wanaka (we love those guys!)

Second: We're not the only game in town... if you're desperate for your poetry fix check out:

POETRY FOR PUDDING
Date: Friday 21 May, 7 - 8.30 pm

Place: Borders Bookshop Rotherham St.Riccarton.
Poets and listeners of all levels and ages welcome.

Bring a favourite poem...yours or another's. Come
and enjoy the friendly and relaxed atmosphere.


Now that's cosy.

Next Catalyst Poetry Open Mic...

Wednesday 5th May 8pm
Al's Bar - 31 Dundas St
BYO poetry

Also the same night - the final in this year's series of readings from the Canterbury Poets Collective over at Madras Cafe Bookshop. Featuring each of the winners from this series open mics there. Why not do both? Poetry is ruling the city this week!

Sandra Sarala - live at Al's Bar

Sandra Sarala, singing poet
Wednesday 24 March, 8.30pm
Al's Bar
with special guest, Maryrose Crook.

Coming up this week at Al's Bar is a visiting performance poet, or rather a long lost daughter of Aotearoa returning. We thought y'all should get along and check it out. It's not every week we have a touring poet of this calibre so come along and support!

More about Sandra:

Sandra Sarala. a.k.a. Sandra Dempster, left New Zealand 13 years ago for Seoul and ended up in Berlin, where she's been active in the city's vibrant international community as a singing poet with a sideline in archaic East European folk song for the last eight years.

Her poetic performances are lyrical, satiric, philosophic and story-telling: after studying history from 1989-91 at the University of Canterbury and theatre and film at Victoria University of Wellington in 1996 she was a member of Red Mole's Roadwork's company, she has devised and performed her own work in Wellington, South Korea, Poland and Germany, trained in Commedia dell'Arte in Italy, and developed open vocal technique with teachers from Ukraine, Russia, and Poland.

She's survived several economic meltdowns in various countries, including South Korea, Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany, and has fallen back on farming, journalism, life-modelling and teaching skills in most of those places.

After spending a winter writing, alone on an isolated central Bohemian farm with wood-stove heating/cooking and no running water, she fell in love with the luxuries of Berlin in spring 2002 and moved there, later becoming a co-founding member of the ensemble Polynushka, whose 2008 limited release CD of Russian village song won the German Record Critic's prize for folklore in August of the same year.

Having been born and raised and Dunedin then steadily making her way north through Christchurch, Wellington, Paekakariki, Asia and Europe, she's touring her way back south during March 2010 before returning to Berlin after Easter.

Photos become memories...

Continuing our slightly drunken stagger down memory lane...




Ben - April 2008

Stefan - April 2008

Helen L. - April 2008

Helen Y. - April 2008

Nostalgia is a gateway drug

I realised that the blog has been a bit static and also a bit too wordy of late. Here's a trip down memory lane with some of the poets at open mics in recent years...

Bella - December 2008

David - December 2008

Sean - December 2008

Ricky - December 2008

Poetic Justice, Southern Style

We have a sister poetry open mic in Wanaka!

'The Poetic Poetesses', Laura Williamson and Liz Breslin run an open mic called Poetic Justice Wanaka at Pa Runga Wine Bar, upstairs from Kai Whaka Pai (cnr Ardmore and Helwick Streets, Wanaka)

Check out their blog via the link above or here.

Catalyst's March night was honoured to have Liz in attendance and over several drinks we started to cook up schemes to bring our two esteemed literary salon evenings together. Let us know what you think of that idea and what we could do together!

Next Catalyst Open Mic

Kia ora!

Let Catalyst take you by the hand and lead you into Autumn

Wednesday 3rd March, 8pm
Al's Bar - 31 Dundas St
BYO poetry or whatever

it's hot today...

Happy New Year!

Greetings and salutations for another year! This is just a quick wee post to notify y'all about our first open mic of the year and the special one-off date for it...

Catalyst's Poetry Open Mic Nights are returning in February 2010.

The first one is a little unusual with a slightly different date - for this month only we'll be on the first Thursday of the month. That means the date and details are as follows:

First Catalyst Open Mic for 2010
Thursday 4th February, 8pm entry is free
Al's Bar, 31 Dundas St Christchurch (behind Pak n' Save Moorhouse)

A Very Special Catalyst

Don't you just love Christmas-themed copy writing that starts with headings like that?

Sorry.


Anyway, it's time for our last open mic of the year when we have a HUGE party and then take a couple of months off (the open mics anyay - we'll be making a new Catalyst CD over summer so no rest for the wicked). So. We were mentioning a party...

Catalyst Christmas Party
Wednesday 2nd December, 8pm
Al's Bar 31 Dundas St (Ch.Ch.bro)

featuring a book launch:

Strange Totems
haiku by Doc Drumheller

and Catalyst's Crazy Christmas Sale!

Unbelievable bargains to be had on our back catalogue.
Complete your Catalyst collection or take care of that Christmas shopping in one fell swoop!
Yes, it's poetry for Christmas!!!!

More on STRANGE TOTEMS:

Strange Totems is the latest collection of haiku by Doc Drumheller. Translated and presented in 3 languages - Japanese, English and Te Reo Maori. Strange Totems plays with themes of power and resonance in nature and in cities. The disconnect between humanity and nature and the power of culture and new mythology. The book is published by Clerestory Press who also presented Drumheller's first haiku collection Snake Songs and features photographic montage by the dynamic duo of Johnsin & Fox.

Responses to Catalyst...

A nice mention over on The Creativity Room by the many-talented Ms Lucette Hindin...

Book launch: Songcatcher by Robynanne Milford

Poems for songcatchers by Robynanne Milford aka Bella Boyd

Our City O Tautahi (old provincial chambers)
(cnr Oxford Tce & Worchester Blvd)

December 1 st 5.30pm Tuesday 2009

With songs by the Cecilian Singers
And poems by James Norcliffe, Bernadette Hall, Frankie McMillan, HelenLowe, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

RSVP for catering Nov 23
bellaboyd@xtra.co.nz Poems available Madras Café Books

Catalyst Volume 8

Poetry Takes Flight

Book Launch & Poetry Performance
with open mic and live music from Le Mot Café

Wednesday 4th November, 7.30pm
Al’s Bar - 31 Dundas St, Christchurch

Poets for Samoa

Poets for the Tsunami

Fiona Farrell

Bernadette Hall

Ben Brown

Jim Norcliffe

Danielle O’Halloran

Tusiata Avia

MC: Victor Rodger

Thursday 5 November, 5.30pm,

Madras Café Bookshop, 135 Madras St.

Fundraiser for the Samoan tsunami relief effort – if you haven’t contributed yet, (or even if you have) here is your chance.

Tickets at the door: $10 donation. Raffle. All proceeds to Samoa tsunami relief.

Catalyst 8 - launching!

Wednesday 4th November - time TBC
Al's Bar, 31 Dundas St
Christchurch

Just advance notice about the biggest party of our year! Please come along, celebrate the launch of the best Catalyst yet, maybe even buy a copy. Or three. We'll be selling subscriptions on the night also: get your Catalyst delivered!

Stay tuned for more information leading up to the launch. Thank you to everyone who's contributed and waited with us for so long!

Fantasy-Fiction Writing Workshop

Check out this great opportunity presented by our pal Helen:

Award-winning author Helen Lowe runs a workshop on writing fantastic fiction, focusing on Fantasy and Sci-Fi. The session includes discussions and exercises on the essential elements of 'fantastic world building', structure and keeping it real. Bring pen and paper.

Saturday 17th October, 10am – 12pm
Venue: Christchurch Central Library
Fee: Free
Bookings: Essential; phone 941 7923

Links:
http://www.helenlowe.info/
http://www.thornspell.info/
http://www.christchurchcitylibraries.com/Events/NZBookMonth/

NZ Book Month & the ChCh Writers Festival

Special poetry event in honour of NZ Book Month, brought to you by the Christchurch Writers Festival. Come and have a glass of wine and see some of Aotearoa's best poets perform their work. Nice.

Friday 2nd October, 5.30pm
Our City, O-Tautahi
cnr Oxford Tce & Worcester Blvd
$10 incl. glass of wine!

Poetry for Wellbeing!

The next Catalyst night just happens to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week and this happy collision means we can celebrate the life-affirming qualities of that elixir we know as poetry!

The theme for this year's Mental Health Awareness Week is 'Winning Ways to Wellbeing - Connect, Give, Take Notice, Keep Learning, Be Active.'

Come and see how Catalyst fulfills all 5 of the Winning Ways to Wellbeing by encouraging poets to connect with each other, take notice of the beauty of poetry, keep learning about performance techniques and new styles of writing, give freely of their verse and er, move around a lot while they perform!

We can imbibe other kinds of elixirs even as we partake of the heady properties of spoken word!

Where do I go for this unmissable evening of convivial verse and comraderie you wonder? Well, glad you asked:

Catalyst Poetry Open Mic
Wednesday 7th October, 8pm
Al's Bar, 31 Dundas St
Christchurch (behind Pak n' Save)
BYO poetry

Next Catalyst Poetry Open Mic

Lots of fun last night at Al's Bar for the Phantom Billstickers launch of their third series of poetry on posters, on the occasion of Janet Frame's birthday. A bit of an impromptu open mic occurred and Al's famous hospitality was enjoyed by a good crowd of poetry-heads. The Janet Frame literary trust also announced the 2009 winners of the Janet Frame Literary Award:

For Poetry: Geoff Cochrane (latest collection - Pocket Edition)
For Fiction: Alison Wong (her first novel As the Earth Turns Silver out now)

Phew! That's some link-heavy action up there. Let's see some of you down at Al's again this coming Wednesday for Catalyst's open mic.

Catalyst Poetry Open Mic
Wednesday 2nd September, 8pm
Al's Bar, 31 Dundas St (behind Pak n' Scab)
BYO poetry & a sense of adventure!

The Phantom of Janet Frame...

To mark the occasion of Janet Frame's Birthday tomorrow, Phantom Billstickers is launching it's third wave of "Poetry on Posters" which includes Catalyst fave Ben Brown. The winner of the Janet Frame Prize 2009 will also be announced.


“Poetry on the occasion of Janet Frame’s birthday”

Al’s Bar, 31 Dundas Street, Christchurch
Friday 28 August at 5.30pm

There’ll be refreshments and entry is free.
Presented by Phantom Billstickers