I was asked if I wanted to organise something for Sydney but I won't be in town around that date. Anybody interested?

Dear
Les Wicks,                   ,  

Hamish
Danks Brown suggested I contact you. I am writing to find out if you
would be interested in organizing an event on September 24 for 100 Thousand Poets for Change in Sydney.               .

So
far 100 Thousand Poets for
Change has 190 cities and 45
countries signed on to organize events, as part of a global initiative to
celebrate/demonstrate poetry and address issues of peace and
sustainability. 

The
website discusses the concept of the event in more detail on the ABOUT page, but
the bottom line is that this is a global event, with the overall
theme of peace and
sustainability, in which each local community can address its specific
concerns. 

I am
very excited by this project, there seems to be a groundswell. I live in the San
Francisco area and originally hoped to have 1 big event but it has evolved to 11
events in the Bay Area, with City Lights bookstore tweeting the event and
posting flyers around the store, Oakland Slam poets will be putting on a SLAM
FOR CHANGE, Word Party will organize and event of poetry and music, Free
University of San Francisco will have a day of lectures by poets about poets and
the activism, Oakland Public library will put on a reading sponsored by PEN
Oakland. Other groups have indicated their interest in fundraisers to
help projects they care about. I like the idea that so many poets of so many
styles and inclinations have seen their way through this initiative to join with
each other.

Also,
the EVENT LOCATION page, which is also a community page on the blog/website,
allows participants to post event details and also to post poems, photos,
documentation that can be shared with all other participants around the world.
Poets and writers around the world need to know each other better. This will be
come a major document of contemporary world poetry.

Not to
go on too much—I would be honored to have you set up a event in
Sydney on September
24 for 100 Thousand Poets for
Change.  Please let me know if you are interested.

I look
forward to hearing from you.

Sincere
regards,

Michael
Rothenberg

100
Thousand Poets for Change

walterblue@bigbridge.org

ps. you
can learn more about me at Big Bridge online magazine. I am the editor and
publisher. http://www.bigbridge.org/BB15/2011_BB_15_EDITORS/bioroth.htm

pss. Here is a very short
list of some of the events that will be taking place:

In Vancouver, BC Fraser Riverkeeper will lead a TD Great
Canadian Shoreline Cleanup at False Creek East, near some of the dirtiest waters
in Canada. Mary Woodbury of Moon Willow Press is working with community poets
and artists to develop a poetry reading later that afternoon or
evening.

In Philadelphia, there will be a PACE
action, which is a wandering participatory reading through the
streets

In a Seattle, a 12 hour skype session,
poets skypeing poems in from around the world

In Kathmandu, Nepal there will be an all day school project
which involves discussion of peace and sustainability, writing poems, a contest,
and inclusion of the poems in a book to commemorate the event

In Milwaukee poets who are active in the Labor Union
demonstrations will give a reading.

In Austin, TX, Oakland, CA, Spokane, WA,
Hilo, HI, Accra, Ghana and Athens, Greece there will be a Slam for
Change!

Bancroft,
Ontario, has the distinction of being
known as, 'Ontario's Most Talented Town,' and this year is Bancroft's 150th
anniversary so, on September 24th, they'll be celebrating their thriving arts
community and a birthday with poetry, music, and, possibly, theatre.  For
change, their focus will be on creating more awareness about their natural
environment.

In Mentone, AL for Sept 24. It will be an
outdoors/picnic event with poets, speakers and music/singers/artwork. We will
use the event to call attention to environmental issues and citizen action for
change.

In Kenya they will have a peace rally against gang
violence with a poetry reading.

(The list goes on. And it is
early yet so people are still formulating their programs).