You can’t beat poetry in motion

BEAT the crowds and ease into your weekend tomorrow when the School of Creative Arts presents an evening of smooth spokenword poetry and live original jazz.

Beat Night will feature beat-style performance by awardwinning local poet Young Dawkins, accompanied by live jazz music performed by a trio of top Tasmanian musicians.

Dawkins was a central figure in the New Hampshire beat revival movement in the US, where he helped found the Jazz-mouth poetry festival in 2005.

He then moved to Scotland and became a regular in the Scottish performance poetry scene, eventually winning the 2011 Scottish Slam Poetry Championship and representing Scotland at that year’s Slam Poetry World Cup in Paris.

Now based in Tasmania, Young was the 2014 Hobart City Slam Champion, a guest poet at the 2016 Tasmanian Poetry Festival, and winner of this year’s Huon Valley Storytellers Cup.

Tomorrow night, Dawkins will be joined by a three-piece jazz band, featuring the talents of in-demand bass player Nick Haywood, the head of Contemporary Music at the University of Tasmania; gospel, soul and jazz pianist Andrew Legg, the Head of School at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music and director of the ARIA Awardnominated Southern Gospel Choir; and local percussionist Maggie Abraham, best known for her work with Hobart cumbia band Chupacabra.

Beat Night will be held in the Dechaineux Lecture Theatre (University of Tasmania School of Creative Arts, Hunter Street) from 5pm tomorrow. Bar opens at 4.30pm. Entry is free.