Weekly update

‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears’ to borrow from one of the great poets, Mr Shakespeare. Fremantle Poetry Month is upon us and each week, there will be a rundown of the events that have just gone and the ones approaching.

The month began with our first event on Friday, which was a poetry workshop for secondary students at the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre. And what an amazing day it was with over 120 students from seven different schools split across two sessions. The morning session run by Kevin Gillam, co-author of Two Poets, focused on the use of the five senses to create unique poetry and creative ways to approach the often agonising task that is beginning. He played his cello to inspire the students and encouraged them to use the music to set the mood of the poems which the students wrote in the workshop. The afternoon session was run by Michael Heald, author of The Moving World whose approach was to get the students to question what poetry is and how it is different from other forms. Taking the students from the intangible idea to the concrete act of writing and reading and then back to the philosophical of questioning and meaning in their writing. Overall it was an interesting and engaging day run by two poets that we are proud to be publishing as a part of Fremantle Poetry Month 2011.

Voicebox’s open mike evening last night was at Clancy’s Fish Pub Fremantle and featured the poetic stylings of Kevin Gillam and Kaitlyn Plyley. It also marked the launch of the much anticipated art installation Thonglines curated by Renee Schipp, Anna Dunnill and Kiki Hunwick. The exhibition features Haiku poetry written by Christmas Island students on the thongs they have collected from the shores of the island. It's available to view every day in July. You can have a look at our curators other works on flickr.

Anna: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ampersand_/

Kiki: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60326457@N03/

To meet the Fremantle Poetry Month poets in person come down to the official launch this Thursday at the Fremantle Arts Centre at 6:00pm. There will be poetry readings and live music from Tracy Ryan The Argument, Michael Heald The Moving World, Kevin Gillam and Andrew Lansdown Fremantle Poets 2: Two Poets plus Liana Joy Christensen, Amanda Joy, John Charles Ryan and Caitlin Maling. Warm up with a glass of wine and some free entertainment.

Again welcome to Fremantle Poetry Month 2011 we hope to see you all rhyming and punning along with us throughout the month.

Stephanie Sutcliffe, Fremantle Press Marketing Assistant