Denis Kevans remembered

After a successful debut last year, the Denis Kevans Memorial Anzac Eve Peace Concert returns for 2010 at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre, with proceeds once again going to the ‘Friends of Maliana’ effort in East Timor.

“The Anzac Eve date relates to the fact that Denis Kevans was nicknamed the ‘poet lorrikeet’ – a cheeky activist whose family, from his father to two uncles, were affected by war,” said event co-ordinator and Friends of Maliana activist, Jefferson Lee. “Because he was such a good poet, and wrote hundreds of poems about war, we decided to concentrate on that aspect. Kevans wrote specifically about the conversations he’d had with Vietnam vets and the effect Agent Orange had had on them, and continues to have, like the birth defects emerging in Vietnamese children three generations down the line.”

Aboriginal community leader Ray Minniecan headlines the concert, reflecting this year’s theme of linking Kevans’ poetry to the Indigenous cause via the ‘Coloured Diggers’ project. “[The concert] will be a warm-up for the Coloured Diggers Commemoration on Anzac Day itself, where I perform the service in Redfern Park after a walk from The Block at lunchtime,” Mr Minniecan said. “Denis is fondly remembered by many Kooris because of his epic poem, ‘Ah White Man Have You Any Sacred Sites’. I would like to read that to a few federal politicians now, over the proposal to dump the Lucas Heights nuclear waste on Aboriginal Land in Muckety in the Northern Territory.”

Minniecan is far from the only attraction at the concert, which also boasts award-winning blues and pop diva ‘Snez’, folkie stalwarts Kate Delaney and Dennis Tracey, comedian Tug Dumbley, the Sydney Trade Union Choir, and Jack Mundey.

The concert will run from 1pm to 5pm at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre on Saturday, April 24; for details, contact the Mayor’s Office at Leichhardt Council (9367 9191) or Jefferson Lee (0408 162 013).