A few special congratulations…
to Indigo for her 3rd placing in the Australian National Poetry Slam, the highest place ever achieved by a SA poet & to the other SA finalist, Kami (http://www.paroxysmpress.com/), who came 7th on the night;
to Valerie Volk for winning the John Bray Roman Poetry Prize. Also to Valerie and Maeve Archilbald for winning special commendations in this competition;
to the mentored poets who all performed well as our December Guest Poets Kate Alder, Jill Gower, Suzanne Reece, Ros Schulz and Jenny Toune;
to Jacqui Merckenschlager for winning poem of the meeting at Murray Bridge;
to Carmel Williams for winning poem of the meeting at the Salisbury Festival;
and to Jeri Kroll for winning poem of the meeting at Port Noarlunga.
These winning poems will be posted throughout summer. We hope to create the Mentorship site with all mentored poets and their mentors being acknowledged and represented. We will also be updating the Gallery of Poets.
The Board of Management wants to thank the many members who have performed in such a variety of venues during 2009, taking Friendly Street out to a variety of community spaces, places and regional centres; even the first time at Royal Adelaide Show and our second show with SA Art Gallery. Thank you for your skills, abilities, creativity, time and energy. Friendly Street is only as good as its enthusiatic and generous volunteer community. Thank you to all the presenters of workshops and seminars, our guest readers (whether home grown, from interstate or overseas), our mentors, judges and our very hard working editors and ever-busy publishing team.
Seasonal best wishes to all our members, our creative partners in community organisations and all the creative visitors to our site. May 2010 be an exciting, challenging but inspirational year for you all. May your metaphors sing soprano and your similies leap to unexpected places. May your rhythms rhumba and your metres march in whatever direction you desire. May your rhymes wriggle and writhe into place, never to detract or distract from meaning or space.
Kindest regards and best wishes for 2010!
