Warm Bohemian days ahead

By MEGAN PALIN

In an effort to generate local business throughout the cooler months, the Bondi Bohemia Winter Festival is aiming to draw people out of their heated homes and into various venues throughout Bondi when it kicks off on July 11.

Writer and performer, Miles Merrill, 38, will be featuring throughout the festival by hosting a poetry workshop and performing in the festival’s poetry slam where punters have a go at entertaining and judges are chosen randomly from the audience.

According to Merrill, festival audiences can expect to be challenged and entertained, to laugh, cry and stomp their feet and howl at the sky. “I hope to inspire people to write and perform their own stories, poems, monologues and lyrics,” he said.

Merrill describes himself as a writer who performs his work and said he’s been called a verse-hurler, monologist, spoken-word performer as well as ‘passionate’, ‘wild’, ‘on fire’, ‘a tongue-twisting spit laden adventure’ and a ‘tour-guide of the human spirit’.

Although he attended last year’s festival as an audience member, this year will be Merrill’s first time performing in it. After spending more than two decades combining poetry with theatre, experimental audio, stand-up and political confrontation, Merrill is an old hand at entertaining audiences.

And he has a string of awards and nominations to show for it. Some of his wins include the Sydney Writer’s Festival in 1998, the Kurrajong Poetry award and the State Library of NSW Poetry Olympics.

Born and raised in Chicago, Merrill has been living in Waverley for seven years. “It’s great that people appreciate Bondi as a thriving cultural spot. Not just a place to swim and pump iron,” he said.

Merrill is the founder of Australia’s first spoken-word festival ‘Night Words’ and Australia’s National Poetry Slam. But he lists his greatest achievement as a performer so far as inspiring an outback school to start their own radio program and perform their own stuff.

The poetry slam night will also feature performances from successful performance poets Adam Gibson, Edwina Blush and Tara Resch and there will be an opportunity for community members attending the event to perform.

The festival will also consist of a host of other activities including musical performances in various locations throughout Bondi Beach, kids’ rides and activities, street festivals, arts and craft workshops, a youth skate boarding event, poetry events and art gallery tours.

The Bondi Bohemia Winter Festival celebrates the artistic and cultural heritage of the area and will run from July 11 – 26.

For more information on the poetry workshop and to register contact Ben Eadie: ben@octobersun.com.au.