Boring, you might think, but boring, no, anything but. On Sunday the 19th of May, at the Drouin Community Hub, a hall full of people were entranced by a poetry reading from some of the Catchment poets themselves and from members of Off The Leash Theatre.
What a wonderful way to spend a cold, wet and grey day in the warmth of a setting created by lighting effects and filled with people enthusiastic to be attending the first public reading from works from the on-line journal Catchment – Poetry of Place. It was also the first performance for the Drouin Community Hub, which proved to be a good venue for such a performance.
Two performance sessions were separated by an Interval with the audience treated to a lavish afternoon tea catered for by Off the Leash.
The organisation of the event was excellent, with all poets on stage taking turns to read their poems, so no time lags, just an extremely polished performance by all. The reading brought out the feeling and passion of the poems and explained the intent of the poet which created a greater interest for the audience.
The performance has been recorded by 3BBR-FM for broadcasting at a later date.
The reading was a collaboration between Baw Baw Arts Alliance, Off The Leash Theatre and 3BBR-FM. A big thank you to Jeannie Haughton, Rodney Williams and Paul Strickland for their hours of work behind the scenes to present this afternoon for us. They did such an excellent job. Also a big thank you to the poets and readers from Off The Leash Theatre Company for their very polished performance in bringing the poems to life.
We look forward to the next performance. Many who attended thanked us for putting on this event. There were many words of praise and a hope for more of the same.
Entries closed May 21 for Edition 2 of Catchment – Poetry of Place. Edition 2 will be launched on-line on June 21. Not long to wait. Then we will look forward to another very enjoyable afternoon of poetry reading.