End of Week 12

Thank you all (first, second and third year) for you talent, enthusiasm and commitment in putting on a raft of plays in this last week. We had performances of 20thCentury plays by Pinter, Beckett, Edson and Stoppard, Australian plays A Hard God, Coralie Lansdowne Says No, The Cakeman and How Does Your Garden Grow. In Third year we had a raft of presentations around the life and work of William Blake, poet, painter and revolutionary thinker. There are some suggestions that maybe next year Literature students should put ALL their talents togetherand produce one BIG play… sounds a great idea… only a little daunting if it means trying to assess everyone fairly!!!

By the way – did you all take note that Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature just this week! Check out the following:
http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1482078.htm

The poetry competition is being assessed as we speak: I have the recommendations in from three judges. The fourth is to come. Then these recommendations will be sifted, sent back to the judges and the top three will be named with the prize going to the top one.

This has been such a success in terms of drawing out talent and inspiring non-writers to try their hand that I am keen to keep up the energy into this community. So my plan is this: another competition starts immediately. The next prize will be even bigger and better and will be drawn during orientation week 2006 as a wonderful kick into next year. I will be again calling for a panel of judges. But I have an additional idea (and maybe you have some ideas too): many of you clearly have good, very good working knowledge of what makes a poem “kick”, what makes it “live”. This is a great knowledge to have! In fact once you have this knowledge your 80% there in terms of your understanding and appreciation of how literature works. So it is an amazingly important piece of knowledge, wisdom, call it what you will. So I want to harness this knowledge and use it so that those who know can help those who don’t.
How can we do this. I think we need a panel of judges who are also experts (of a kind…. I am talking about you! not some expert from outside the uni) and who can give real ongoing advice to budding poets. This would be wonderful for the budding poets, but also a great opportunity for those who are sort of experts to hone their skills…. what do you think? do you catch my drift? So a rolling panel of expert judges…. so how do THEY get to submit their poems into the community, into the competition????
Well that is easy.
They submit like everyone else, but their contributions are assessed by a panel of MORE expert judges (myself maybe??? dare I say??? and maybe someone else on uni faculty: chaplain/ dean of students etc)… so they get the opportunity to be included too… with a special “judges” category….
How is all this sounding… I know it is still very early.

Competition results should be up by mid-week at the latest. Prize winner will be called!
Cheers
MG

So just to repeat:
Poetry Competition Round 2 has now commenced and will be judged during orientation week. Prize will be displayed shortly.
Team of “expert” judges called for: volunteers please send me your details and credentials!!!! (just joking).