Workshop Day

We got all of us together today - that's me, Sabrina, Murray, Christian and Nikki, all five of us, finally. And it clicked. Like, it really clicked. 3:30 saw us take over Bannerman Manor (aka Murray's flat) with Fiona Holding and her cello-goodness. I got home at 10:30. We took a break for dinner, but that was basically 7 hours of workshopping, getting to know each other, each other's words and each other's rhythms. And we're loving it.

While Murray and Christian worked with Fiona on their pieces with cello-backing, the three of us woman members of this collaboration got down to work on a 3-person adaptation of Bullet Hole Riddle. Which was amazing - Nikki's doing the sung sections of the piece in this version, and I love it. Having three female voices performing this piece really adds another dimension to its meaning. And it's all just fitting together. Each time we sat down with another piece to look at, we'd do a couple of run throughs and then we'd all be doing a little 'poetry dance' at how well it was coming together. Things just flow with us, this is working. The pieces with cello are coming along beautifully and I really can't say enough how f*cking brilliant it is to have a brand new person to work with, to bounce off. We don't get that enough here. There's so few of us around. You go to a gig and you almost always already know every performer. And they're great and everything, but it's what I'm used to. This is a new person, with a new voice, new perspective - for us and for Nikki too I suppose. The whole process has become electrified with it.

It's good to hear that Nikki is digging it here. The other poets she's met so far have all been just as welcoming as us, just as interested in it all (thank you other poets!). Lovely, wonderful Penny has given her a homey place to stay, and is just so cool.

We sent her off down to Genevieve McLean's Projector Project with Christian last night, gave her a chance to see some of the crazier or more avante garde side of what's going on down here. Christian was dressed as the "absinthe faery", which was kind of like a leprechaun who hands out absinthe I think. She seems to have survived with mind still intact, which is a good sign. Definitely isn't getting bored. Murray and I took her by the supermarket for obligatory Cheezles, Pineapple Lumps, L&P and Peanut Slabs before dropping her home tonight. I mean really these are things everyone should have tried.

We introduced her to the wonders of Vegemtie last night, which shereckons is like Cheese Whizz (??) and garlic mixed together - but still likes it! Interesting. I think cheese whizz might be like melted down Cheezles in a can, but frothy like Diary whip. With garlic. Vegemite is black. Whatever, poets' brains don't have to follow ordinary logic.

Sabrina says she is going to marry Nikki when she grows up. I am all in favour of this, because then we could keep her.

My voice is sore but I still feel like playing around with my solo pieces. Which would just be obsessive. So I won't. But that's how inspired I am about the whole thing.

6 more days to go. You can catch Nikki and Christian on Kiwi Fm at midday tomorrow.

Apart from the recent tragedy in my family, I am loving my life right now. As stressful, high-pressured and charged as it is. I get to spend the next week just 100% immersed in poetry and performance. Bliss. The Literatti are so great to spend time with. I mean sure, we are working. But we are loving it. Jokes, laughter, song, jigs, jazz-hands, poetry, emotion, inspiration, synchronicity, bloopers, and out-takes... these are days filled with beautiful madness. It's almost sad that the final product will only ever live for one hour. Which is why we're making every second of it count.