Phantom Bill Stickers Poetry @ River City On The Banks Of The Mighty Waikato River

    AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, July 26, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Celebrating National Poetry Day in Hamilton, Phantom Billstickers will be adorning Hamilton City, New Zealand, with an array of poem posters by prominent New Zealand and American poets. Pasting the poems onto the walls and alleyways of downtown, Phantom will bring Hamilton alive with the poetry of the world, connecting hearts and minds with river cities everywhere. From the Mississippi to the Waikato, poem posters bring imagination, music and beauty back into the streets.

PASTING THE POEMS
The poems will be read at a ceremony on the 30th of July, outside the Library at Garden Place, Hamilton at 12.30 pm. Guest readers including Mayor Bob Simcock, Nandor Tanczos and Graeme Cairns will paste the first posters onto a nearby wall, thereby instigating the flood of words across the Hamilton landscape.
All are welcome.

THE POETS
An interesting mix of Kiwi and American poets will be featured on the poem posters.

From Aotearoa (New Zealand):

Chris Knox, well known Kiwi musician, song writer and Beat Mystic.

Michele Leggott, award winning poet, academic, essayist, and editor. Inaugural NZ Poet Laureate and Member of the NZ Order of Merit, she is also the driving force behind the NZ Electronic Poetry Centre.

Bill Manhire, New Zealand's Man of Letters and five-times winner of the New Zealand Book Awards Poetry Prize. He was honoured with the Prime Ministers Award for Literary Achievement in 2007.

Sam Hunt, one of NZ's best loved poets and performers. Awarded a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his contribution to poetry in June this year, his recent work includes 'Doubtless' and an album with musician David Kilgour. His forthcoming publication of poems is entitled 'Chords'.

Tusiata Avia, Pacifika performance poet and current Ursula Bethel Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.

Stephen Oliver, poet and voice artist, author of fifteen volumes of poetry including the recently published collection 'Harmonic'.

Jay Clarkson, a musician who has been performing her songs solo and with bands for over two decades. She resides in Dunedin with the sounds of bell birds and tuis bewitching her on a regular basis.

Cilla McQueen, poet and artist, three-time winner of the New Zealand Book Award for poetry and current New Zealand Poet Laureate.

Pablo Nova, artist, designer and sculptor with words. Originally from New Plymouth he now resides in Christchurch, NZ where he exhibits his paintings and constructions at a number of local galleries.

Otis Mace, freewheelin' guitar ace, writer of futuristic ballads and sharp edged social commentary. New Zealand's Songbag man.

Then from the USA:

Robert Creeley, Black Mountain poet, recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious Bollingen Prize and mentor of innovative poets and poetics everywhere.

Gerald Stern, Poet Laureate of New Jersey, recipient of the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, US National Book Award winner for poetry and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Michael Palma, poet and translator of Dante's 'Inferno'.

Robert Pinsky, poet, essayist and translator. Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress and the only member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters to have appeared on both 'The Simpsons' and 'The Colbert Report'. His most recent book of poetry is entitled 'Gulf Music'.

Jeffery McCaleb, a fine and heartfelt new poet from middle Tennessee.

THE INSPIRATION
Jim Wilson, the founder of Phantom Billstickers, is a keen advocate and committed supporter of poetry and the arts. Jim's aim is to take Kiwi arts to the world. He has worked to post streets and cafe walls with poem posters in cities from Mississippi State through to New York. No city is too big or too small for Jim's glue brush and poems. On a recent poster run in Lambertville, New Jersey, Jim writes "if you read a Brian Turner or a Michael Palma poem in Lambertville on an old wooden lamp-post, then you have been touched my friend".

You can read about the poetry project on www.0800phantom.co.nz

Jim Wilson lives in New Hope, Pennyslvania and may be contacted [email protected]

RE-CLAIMING THE WORLD
The Phantom Poetry project has met with widespread enthusiasm. It seems everyone understands a poem poster in the streets. Printing poems on posters is largely about hope. In a world of splitting opinions, extreme violence and never-ending political and commercial intrigue, the aim is to bring truth and beauty back into the streets. Inspiring people to partake and celebrate in the creativity of language, the presence of poems in our cities is about re-claiming the world through art.

"The only thing that can save the world is reclaiming the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does." Allen Ginsberg.

PHANTOMPOETRY
Poetry on Posters Reclaiming the World

For further press enquiries or interviews, please contact:

Jamey Holloway
ph +64-21 333012 (New Zealand)
email: [email protected]

or Terry Ryder
ph +64-21 334696 (New Zealand)
email: [email protected]

Follow Phantom Billstickers on facebook & twitter

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Phantom-Billstickers/105665726128833

http://twitter.com/0800phantom

# # #