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On Sunday night I lost my mobile phone.
I had it in the car with my dad one minute and then when I went to get it at the Dux-de-Lux, it was gone.
I was completely flummoxed, it really just disappeared into thin air and no matter of ringing it and screaming c**ts at the top of my voice made any difference.
I had to try and forget about it all though as I was hosting Poetry Idol at the Bar and a stressed MC doesn’t make for a fun night.
I therefore emptied my brain, not too tricky, and stepped up to the microphone to run the very first Poetry Slam of the Christchurch Writer’s Festival. For those who don’t know a slam is a performance poetry competition and we added a twist with three celebrity judges who gave encouraging comments between rounds to our poets.
We had Iggy McGovern who is a Poet and Physics professor at Trinity College Dublin, a natural combination. There was also Ishle Yi Park a gorgeous Korean American who is an amazing performer and has just moved to Auckland. And we had Doc, a local lad who runs a Poetry Idol once a year in Christchurch.
The contestant mix was many and varied. We had 91-year-old Roy who was sprightly and charming and won my heart by giving me a poem at the beginning of the night written by his late wife…..cue awwwww noises.
We also had Paulette from Waimate and Kerry from Kaikoura who delivered a beautiful love poem for her husband. There was a doctor from Diamond Harbour who waxed lyrically on Chlamydia and a Canterbury farmer called Colin who delivered his poems dressed in a Swandri and cow cocky hat (at least I think that’s what they’re called).
We also had a filthy Scotsman, a mysterious Canadian and a gent who unsettled by imagining the Vikings rutting his mother…..crikey.
In short it went off mate and I couldn’t have been more proud. It ended up with three finalists, the Scots, the cow cocky and a local musician turned poet for the evening. The judges had no say in the end as the entire audience cast their votes to decide the ultimate winner.
And the winner was… (I felt just like Dominic Bowden at that point) Colin the Cow Cocky! He won $200 and some Dux-de-Lux vouchers so the beer’s on him if you know him. I actually thought he was going to cry as it was the first time he’d done anything like it in his seventy or so years, suffice to say the audience were charmed. The musician snatched second from the Scotsman and much fun was had by all 150 or so people there.
I also managed a sneaky few savs and a bonus few pashes after the event so that’s always fun and to top it off I got my phone back the next day. It seems Roy, the 91-year-old took it home with him as it’s the same as his, just proving to everyone out there how hip my mobile phone obviously is … hhhm. Oh and no, I didn’t get the pashes from him.
(I highly recommend losing something for 12 hours by the way, because when you get it back you are exactly the same as you were 13 hours earlier but waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay happier.)
And I finally sat down last night and wrote out all my numbers and I suggest you do the same.
Penny
Last updated: 29/04/2008
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