Alicia Sometimes seeks out the most exciting spoken word artists in the land for your reading/listening pleasure.
THE OFFICIAL BIO
Omar Musa won the Australian Poetry Slam in 2008 and the Indian Ocean Poetry Slam in 2009. He has released two solo hip hop records (The Massive EP and World Goes to Pieces), two self published books (The Clocks and Parang) and a self titled album with international hip hop group MoneyKat. He is set to publish his debut novel Here Come the Dogs through Penguin Books (Australia) in 2013. He is best known for his political hip hop lyrics.
MY VIEW
Poetry super star. Hip hop royalty. Word mister. Stage sorcerer. He has a Wikipedia page and has been on U.S. TV. His TedxSydney talk is drop at the knees, palm over eyes poetry. He knows Tony Jones. He’s been up close to Tony’s purple shirts. When he’s in full swing, we all swoon. Parang is an incredible read. It’s his intelligence as well as his wit as well as that voice. Omar has arrived. And then some. I am known for my hyperbole and excitement over artists I love, but words can’t describe the way I feel about this writer. He is music.
HIS VIEW
I started falling in love with words when…
I was a young scallywag growing up in the flats in Queanbeyan, NSW, trading trash talk and tall stories with the Macedonian boys. Or was it when I wrote my first poem for a Year 5 assignment about Egyptian mythology? Or was it watching plays with my mum as a kid and dreaming for hours afterwards? Or, or…?
The first time I knew I was hooked was…
When I realised writing poetry was fun, therapeutic, and a good way to whittle away the time as an only child.
Poetry (or spoken word) means…
Beauty and horror and dignity and madness.
Other poets I adore are…
Jorge Luis Borges, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Bertolt Brecht, Federico Garcia Lorca, T.S. Eliot, Michael Dransfield, Anne Sexton, A. Samad Said, Usman Awang, Noor S.I., Osip Mandelstam, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Nas… Then there are people I know whose words I love – Zakariya Amataya, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Bohdan Piasecki, Luka Lesson, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Alia Gabres, Easy Bee, C.J. Bowerbird, Andy Jackson, Jessica Alice, Mighty Joe.
I love the sounds of…
A basketball court. The shit talk, the scuff of sneakers, the sound of a swish (unless it’s scored against you – then it’s a sound I hate).
If I could tell you one thing…
“You can woo a girl with a poem, but you can’t hold onto her with a poem. Not even with a poetry movement.” – Roberto Bolano
Alicia Sometimes is an Australian writer, poet, musician, co-host of 3RRR’s Aural Text and a past editor and long-standing contributor of Going Down Swinging (co-editing issues No. 18-No. 23 and contributing to issues No. 14-No. 17 and No. 25-No. 29).
