I was back at Bunjil Place last night for Littlefoot and Co's monthly spoken word event and it was packed. The feature was Joel Evans, the man behind the scenes who makes events in the City of Casey happen and everyone was there to say farewell as it was his last spoken word gig before he moves west to Fremantle.

When I saw all the people I started to feel a little bit nervous. When they said not everyone on the open mic sign-up sheet would get a turn I feel a lot more nervous.  When I heard all the awesome performances I was even more nervous. This was in stark contrast to last month when I felt super chilled and happy. I'm not sure what was different but there were a few things that inspired me.

I was struck by the authenticity and emotional honesty of the performances. This was raw poetry coming straight from the heart. And it was relatable - not wrapped up in euphemism or hyperbole. There was one poet who blew me away with her performance - she had all the moves and I want to learn how to do that. How to move the words through my body and around the stage. And then wrap it all up in a clever metaphor or simile. But not rhyme. I tried rhyme recently during my Online Poetry class with Pip Smith and it ended up coming out cheesy and nursery rhyme-ish.

So that's what I'm aiming for folks: poetry that's relatable with emotional authenticity, wrapped up in metaphor and performed with my whole body and using the stage as my canvas. Easy huh?