ACID ON THE MICROPHONE
GB Live Poets Society celebrates 30 YEARS OF SPOKEN WORD
Way back in 1995, the late Mr Joe Bell commenced Golden Bay Live Poets with a little help from his friends. Joe led the monthly gatherings of poets at the Mussel Inn for 17 years before his death in 2012.
After Joe, pictured left, Mark Raffills held the space until he moved north for a while. Then Sacha Horton performed the duties before Mark returned and resumed the MC role running the monthly gatherings under the name Acid on the Microphone. Admin duties have been carried out by Rose Michel von Dreger and Jane Dixon from the Mussel inn who have secured very valuable support over the years from Creative Communities Funding.
During the life of Golden Bay Live Poets, guests have come from all over the country to perform. Sam Hunt, David Eggleton, Brian Turner, Bernadette Hall, Fiona Farrell, Apirana Taylor and Vincent O’Sullivan have been among them. And there have been many more – a veritable list of who is who from the poetry world.
Regional poets with a national reputation have also featured, including the late Rachel Bush, Gordon Challis, and Panni Palasti, along with Jessica Le Bas and Cliff Fell. And an array of local poets too have held the microphone on different evenings including, in more recent times, Jude Zwanikken, Murray Rogers, Penny Hall, Sam Blanchard, Redwood Reider, Emma Callaghan and The Sherrif.
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