It has been said the poetry scene in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, is the second largest in the world, as measured per capita. There were, at last count, four weekly readings, two fortnightly, 18 monthly and three bi-monthly, which is fabulous for a city with a population around 3.7 million, though possibly to be expected for the capital of a state that buys more newspapers, magazines and books than any other state or territory in Australia.

Some of these venues are long-standing. The Spinning Room, established by Jon Garrett, has been running virtually every Tuesday night since 1999, ever since Jon migrated to Australia from London, where he was running an event with the same name at the Hollybush in Hampstead from 1995. Then there’s The Dan, as it is affectionately called, which has been running at the Dan O’Connell pub on Saturdays since 1994 and has featured virtually every top poet Melbourne has produced, whether of the literary type or of the spoken word/performance sort. There’s also the Boroondara Soiree, now a bi-monthly event, but when first established in the early 90s was a monthly event. Finally, there’s La Mama Poetica, which has been running continuously on a monthly basis since its establishment by the late Mal Morgan in 1985 at the famed La Mama Theatre.

As to what goes on at these events and others, there’s everything from straight readings, with a mixture of featured poet and open mic, to slams, tribute nights, performances with music and multimedia, experimental sound work (generally inspired by the Dadaists), electronic cabaret, and, in keeping with Melbourne’s multi-cultural environment, multi-lingual presentations of new and translated works. There are venues, such as Melbourne Poets Union, that provide opportunities for beginning poets to take their first tentative steps from page to stage, and events, such as the monthly Sunday afternoons at the Australian Poetry Centre, that involve not only readings by top Melbourne and Australian poets but also in-depth discussions on poetics. As with all poetry readings the world over, the quality can range from brilliantly rendered and performed lyrics and narratives to boring look-at-me, woe-is-me pieces. Yet all these venues and events give local poets, as well as national and international visiting poets, a welcome number of opportunities to strut their stuff before appreciative and supportive audiences. And if you can’t see this action live, there’s always TV and computer. Red Lobster is a poetry program that has been running on an irregular basis since 2003 on channel 31, Melbourne Community Television. Episodes were filmed at many of the venues mentioned above and the website (http://redlobster.davidmcl.id.au/) has all of them available for purchase and 48 of them as streaming video.

Melbourne is also a flourishing publishing arena for Australian poetry. There are a number of small presses, including Five Islands Press (established by Ron Pretty, who also established the Australian Poetry Centre and Blue Dog magazine), Black Pepper Publishing, Bystander Press, and Flat Chat Press. In print media there are such literary magazines as Blue Dog, Going Down Swinging (publishing since 1980), Meanjin (1940, in Melbourne since 1945), Overland (1954), and Voiceworks (for writers under 25), while in electronic media there is Divan, Australia’s first all-Australian online poetry journal (running since 1998), and Cordite e-zine (originally a print journal, established in 1997). There is also the recent innovative Poems on Trams project, which involves the regular publishing of haiku-type poems (colloquially called roo-ku) on public transport.

Behind many of these ventures and others are a number of excellent support organisations, including the previously mentioned Melbourne Poets Union and Australian Poetry Centre (which itself is supported by Melbourne University), Overload Poetry Inc (which is the organiser of the annual Overload Poetry Festival, usually held in August but this year it's in September), and the Victorian Writers’ Centre. Melbourne poets are often involved in the annual international Melbourne Writers’ Festival, also held in August, and in the variety of local and regional festivals. With the recent announcement that the State Government has allocated $9 million for the establishment of this country’s first Centre for Books and Ideas, at the State Library, there will be even more opportunities for poets to be involved in expanding Australia’s literary culture. And as far as poetry book readers are concerned, there are more bookshops (new and second-hand) in Melbourne than in any other city in the country. One of the best is Collected Works, the premier ‘poetry and ideas’ bookshop in the Southern Hemisphere, and possibly in the world, which was founded by Kris Hemensley and others under a government employment scheme in 1984. Hemensley conducted poetry workshops at La Mama Theatre in the 60s and 70s, published magazines, and was an early advocate of a forward-looking, international and experimentalist approach to Australian poetry.

In summary, the Melbourne poetry scene is a vibrant and extensive one, and is recognised as a major component in the recent application by the City of Melbourne to become the second UNESCO City of Literature (Edinburgh was the first). If you plan to visit Melbourne and wish to read here, the most comprehensive source for finding about the venues and events in Melbourne is Pam’s Poetry Pitch (http://pamspoetrypitch.com/). And just in case you were wondering, apparently Amsterdam has the biggest poetry scene, per capita, in the world. That city has its other attractions, but Melbourne has great weather (sometimes four seasons in the one day), many sporting activities (if you’re into that sort of thing), access to inspiring natural wonders such as the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians National Park, a rich and invigorating night life, including cafes and restaurants of Asian, Middle-Eastern and European cuisines, and a generosity of poetic energy. You will be most welcome.

Earl Livings  http://www.writeoutloud.net/poets/earllivings

Websites for further information:
Australian Poetry Centre: http://australianpoetrycentre.org.au/
Black Pepper Publishing: http://blackpepperpublishing.com/
Blue Dog: http://australianpoetrycentre.org.au/information.html
              http://zestemag.wordpress.com/blue-dog/
Cordite: http://www.cordite.org.au/
Divan: www.bhtafe.edu.au/divan
Flat Chat Press: http://www.nmit.vic.edu.au/flatchatpress/default.html
Going Down Swinging: http://www.goingdownswinging.org.au/
Meanjin: http://www.meanjin.unimelb.edu.au/
Melbourne Poets Union: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~mpuinc
Melbourne Writers’ Festival: http://www.mwf.com.au
Overland: http://www.overlandexpress.org/
Overload Poetry Inc. http://www.overloadpoetry.com/
Poems on Trams: http://movinggalleries.org
Poetry/Spoken Word events: http://pamspoetrypitch.com/
Red Lobster: http://redlobster.davidmcl.id.au/
Victorian Writers’ Centre: http://www.writers-centre.org/
Voiceworks: http://www.expressmedia.org.au/voiceworks.php