Four of Australia's Hottest Performance Poets

ALICIA SOMETIMES, EMILIE ZOEY BAKER, SEAN M WHELAN, JUSTIN ASHWORTH

Adrian Harewood, host of All in a Day on CBC Radio 1, is the evening's MC.

About the poets

Alicia Sometimes is a poet, writer, broadcaster and musician. She has been published in Australia and overseas in such publications as Best Australian Poems 2006, Cordite, Verandah, Westerly, Heat, Poetrix, Short Fuse, Hecate, papertiger, Blue Dog, Overland, Meanjin, etc. She has performed spoken word over 400 times as a feature or guest at many venues, festivals and events in Australia, Berlin, London and New Zealand, including the Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne Writers' Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Mildura Arts Festival, Tasmanian Poetry Festival, Sydney Writers' Festival, The Big Day Out and the Newcastle Writers' Festival. Her first collection of poetry, kissing the curve was released in 2003 through Five Islands Press. Alicia conducted many workshops in cities and regional areas working with communities to showcase poetry performances. She has also been awarded residencies at Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre, Varuna and the Melbourne Aquarium.

She has had work commissioned for State Library of Victoria, Victoria Museum, Art Gallery of Victoria, Writers' Radio and the Red Room Project. Her work has been on radio many times both in Australia and overseas. She is currently a presenter on 3RRR with a weekly show Aural Text dedicated to playing spoken word and was a monthly guest on JJJ's Artery showcasing the best in spoken word from around Australia. In 2004 she was co-organiser of the first national poetry radio slam on Radio National. She was co-editor of the literary journal Going Down Swinging for seven years.

www.myspace.com/aliciasometimes
www.aliciasometimes.com

Emilie Zoey Baker has been a professional artist, writer and performer for over fifteen years. She recently received a scholarship to PoetryLab at the University of Wollongong to work on her second collection of poetry. She was the winner of the Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup in 2006, a member of the winning team for the 2004 Melbourne Writers' Festival poetry slam, and holds slam titles around the country, including 2002 Melbourne Erotic Slam champion. In 2009 will be State coordinater for the National Australian Slam run by The National State Library. She has featured at many venues and festivals including the 2007 Melbourne International Arts Festival ('Voiceprints' at La Mama), the Sydney Opera House as part of the NightWords Festival and a recent tour of New Zealand. She has been published nationally and internationally and was the producer of You Talkin To Me?, a Melbourne spoken word and music compilation CD. Her first collection of poetry, She Wore The Sky On Her Shoulders, was published in 2003 by Hit and Miss Publications. She has appeared on international radio and television and is just downright fabulous.

www.myspace.com/emiliezoeybaker
www.atomicladybomb.blogspot.com

Sean M Whelan has been a writer and performer of spoken word, poetry and short stories for almost ten years. His written work has been widely published both locally and overseas. His spoken word performances have been broadcast on radio RRR and JJJ, Australia's National Youth Radio Station. In 2003 he traveled to New York as part of an Australia Council grant to perform at the launch of Short Fuse, a global collection of Fusion Poetry.

Since 2005 Sean has worked extensively with Melbourne rock band The Mime Set. Their debut performance was for the 2005 Melbourne Fringe Festival with a show titled Death To Your Dreams. It was a collaboration of poetry and music. Since then they have written two more Fringe Festival shows together, LCUK: Falling In and Out of Luck in 2006 and Sweet Cowboy in 2007. Sweet Cowboy was also co-written by Emilie Zoey Baker. In 2007 Sean was invited to perform at the Utan Kayu International Literary Biennale in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Sean also co-ordinates one of Melbourne's most popular regular spoken word events called Babble, held at Bar Open, Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. His first collection of poetry was published in 2003 by Hit & Miss publications titled Love is the First Hate. In 2008 his second book of poetry titled Tattooing the Surface Of The Moon is published by Small Change Press.

www.myspace.com/seanmwhelan
www.loveisthenewhate.blogspot.com

Justin Ashworth has released two independent CDs and a book of poetry, composed music for several short films, dance works and visual art installations. His spoken word performance is a mix of dark ambient music, with haikus as a mantra, and a surrealist tendency. In 2005 Justin published his first book of poetry and CD of spoken word called Fleeting Poetry. It was a collection of short poems about love and death coffee and the laundromat. It came with a CD of spoken word set to dreamy ambient music.

Justin's work also appeared in local independent poetry magazine Mod_Piece, and on a compilation CD/DVD put out by Melbourne's Electundra Festival. In 2007, Justin released the CD, New Music to Fall Asleep to... An electro-acoustic music and poetry exploration of the surrealist state of mind, and the potential for lullabies to invoke more than just sleep. It combined ambient soundscapes, odd rhythms, and a poetic imagination. In March 2008 the project toured Australia nationally. As a guest musician and/or poet, Justin has been Involved in acclaimed Melbourne Fringe Festival shows "Seamstress" (2008), "Kunst Ist Scheisse" (2006), "Extreme Spoken Word" (2005) and Conan the Bubbleman's "Ephemera" (2003).

http://www.myspace.com/fleetingpoetry

about the evening

Tickets: $18 available from The National Arts Centre Box Office, Ticketmaster and directly from Kevin Matthews (Tel: 613 321 1440 / email: ktm7@mac.com) or Max Middle (Tel: 613 859 8423 / email: director@abseries.org)

Cash bar
Reception and book/CD signing to follow

On 6 February 2009, The A B Series in association with Kevin Matthews presents four acclaimed Australian poets/spoken word artists on The National Arts Centre's Fourth Stage. They are Alicia Sometimes, Emilie Zoey Baker, Justin Ashworth and Sean M Whelan, each of whom hails from UNESCO's recently announced City of Literature, Melbourne, Australia.

On 4 February 2009, they land in Vancouver to start their North American tour. The A B Series performance will be their second North American appearance. After which, they leave for Montréal's 2009 Festival Voix d'Ameriques and several engagements there; later in February, they perform in New York's Bowery Club and at The Green Mill Bar in Chicago.

All four are nationally renowned solo performers in Australia with years of publishing and performing experience at home and internationally. They have also contributed much to the development of Melbourne's famously thriving spoken word culture, through organizing regular and special events, publishing, producing a literary radio show, and teaching in schools and the community. As part of their travels, they will also be recording an audio documentary of Canadian and American poets and performers for Australia's esteemed Radio National.

Alicia Sometimes, Emilie Zoey Baker and Sean M Whelan received support for the North American tour from the state body Arts Victoria and from the national Copyright Agency Limited. They have performed and written many shows together including major showcases at the Melbourne Writers' Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Castlemaine Poetry Festival and shows overseas.

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