National Folk Festival

[Zondrae]

G'day all,
Just back from NFF and totally 'poet-ed' out. there were so many spoken word concerts and walk ups that my poor feet and vocal chords need a month to recover. It was cold and on Monday became quite damp.
Met Andrew Hull (hully) for the first time. (I thought he would be older.) We had the privilege of Milton Taylor as our guest judge. He won both the Yarn spinner and Reciter of the festival last year. We also had a mad cap comedian/poet from UK Rob Barrett. His style is completely unique. There was also a repeat performance by a Yankee poet Dick Warwick. To represent the ABPA we had Laurie McDonald, Stephen Whitesides, John Peel, and myself. Then there were Irish Joe Lynch and David Hallett. There were four Poets Breakfasts with walk ups, three poetry on the hay bales, three Acoustic Lounge sessions, Two Terrace Sessions, Several workshops and two yarn spinning sessions. Not to forget Irish Joe had his own story telling spots and Hully had his singing spots. One morning (? Saturday) we got through 30 individual performers.
The Reciter of the year was won by Jason Roweth and the yarn spinner was won by Claire Reynolds. Congratulations to them both. Now they will have to come along next year to select their successor. Jason now joins the handful of people who have won both the Reciter's and the Yarn Spinner's trophy.

An early night with the electric blanket is in order tonight.

[Stephen Whiteside]

Thanks for posting this, Zondrae. It was great, wasn't it?

Surprising, in a sense, that so few of the poets present were ABPA members, given that most of the poetry presented was rhyming.

I realise in retrospect, too, that I was one of only two poets/reciters from Melbourne (the other was Stuart Walker), and I can't think of too many from Victoria at all.

Mind you, it is a fair drive for us Mexicans. We had four in the car - loaded to the absolute hilt with camping gear, clothing, musical instruments, etc. - and it was nearly midnight by the time we got home on Monday.

Great Easter, though. Definitely worth it!