wednesday, 5/6/96

today i went to casuarina secondary college to address two groups of about sixty year eleven and twelve students who had read some of my poems in their english course, it included some performance poetry. the students were especially interested in the computer poetry, and immediately started naming programs that could do what they were seeing. i hope i've inspired some of them to try it out for themselves. i convened with the poets at the green room come 5 pm and later we went to the browns mart thetre for the palm city poetry reading, organised for about seven years now by steve holiday. terry whitebeach was supposed to feature this month but gave her spot to me. i had met many of the poets on my last two visits and it was good to see them again.

thursday, 6/6/96

two performances and a writing workshop at sanderson high school, which looked to me like a maximum security prison when we first arrived, but it was very pleasant inside, lots of tropical plants and shade and a good performance space. there was one group of girls in the first group that decided they weren't interested right from the start, and could have been disruptive, but i kept reading to the others and i could see them getting more involved in the performance and listening. one even told someone else to keep quiet, and when i asked for volunteers to play rhtme down the line, they were enthusiastic. word spread that the poet was ok and the next group were very attentive and had obviously briefed about what was to come. there was also a big glenti segment in the ntnews that morning with photos and articles about the event and participants.

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