On not giving up your day job
photo: Noa Gfrerer It's slam poetry season in Adelaide and Australia. The Australian Poetry Slam competition is in full swing across the country, and I'm super-stoked to be one of two poets representing South Australia in the upcoming national final at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday October 21st. There's a whole lot of open mic events that are going on around town too, so I've been getting along to those. But all this poetry performance, especially the competition, can feel quite ego-driven, which gets uncomfortable after a while. For me, then, it's important to ground myself and there's no better way to do that than to return to my day job with Tutti Arts , where I work part-time as an arts support worker, assisting artists with disabilities to make and create art; visual art, poetry and performance. Ego has to take a back seat in this role, patience is a virtue and humour paramount. But that old question can resurface: Am I a 'real' writer