If you want to perform in the Mollongghip Poetry Slam, you’d better be quick – entries close today, Friday 6 November! And you’ll need to be ready to Zoom because this year the Slam will be virtual.
The slam has been a much-loved annual event since 2004. It was the Hepburn Shire Community Event of the Year in 2017.
It usually sees a hundred people crowding the venerable Mollongghip Hall on the edge of Wombat Forest but, being 2020, this year the performers and spectators will be lounging in the comfort of their own homes.
MC Mark Grant, who has been compering from the outset, has fifteen poets lined up at last count and a team of three judges, including one international judge from the far side of the globe. In his other life, Mark has been running Zoom meetings for up to two hundred people this year so hosting the slam should be a piece of cake.
The theme word this year, unsurprisingly, is ‘pandemic.’ Each poet has a strictly enforced two-minute time limit.
The slam is being held at 7.30 on Saturday 14 November and you are invited to join Zoom for a “pre-poetry glass of your choice” from 7.00.
Poets and people who want to “attend” should email Mark on mollonsship01@bigpond.com to register. He will send you a personal invitation to the Zoom event.
It sounds like just what we need to cheer us up after our long COVID winter.
