13 September 2010
Record entries for RMIT mobile poetry competition
The poems were scrolled on the text tickers at Federation Square.
Posters around the CBD encouraged people to follow @RMIT_Poetry during the festival.
The poems will form part of an augmented reality iPhone App currently in development.
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RMIT University's third annual Mobile Poetry Competition has been the most successful yet, with more than 300 poems submitted by budding poets around Australia.
The top 140-character poems were displayed during the Melbourne Writers Festival on the scrolling text tickers at Federation Square, posted on twitter and added to the online anthology, Poetry 4 U.
Dr Francesca Rendle-Short, Program Director of Creative Writing at RMIT, said a panel of writers, performance-based artists and RMIT lecturers selected the best 54 poems for inclusion in the online anthology, sponsored by RMIT Union Arts.
"Condensing your creativity into short, sharp bursts is a fantastic challenge," Dr Rendle-Short said.
"But well chosen words can be incredibly powerful and evocative.
"Some of the most memorable phrases from literature and history - like 'to be or not to be, that is the question' or 'I have a dream' - would easily fit into a 140-character tweet."
On top of crafting entries for the competition, many people also joined in the fun during the festival, adding their poetic musings to RMIT's dedicated poetry page (@RMIT_Poetry) with the tag #Poetry4U.
The 2010 competition inspired creative efforts such as:
Scribblers
perch at a Fed Square bar
thinking into their drinks.
(Angela Smith)
I'm in love with an emoticon.
Colon eyes punctuated
with a beautiful bracket smile.
But even with happiness
on tap his sentiment runs cold.
(Lauren Esplin)
Winter
i have no eggs to give you
only sprouting walnuts
(Eric Yoshiaki Dando)
do trams dream of freedom from constraint
to roam free of track and line
across hill and valley
& to sleep under a sky
filled with stars?
(Harris Portway)
moving out
i leave behind nothing
but that bit of me
you said you loved
(Mary Hind)
She is more
blue light disco
than red light district.
(Tanja Kovac)
The 2010 entries will also form part of an exciting augmented reality iPhone app, which is currently in development by Dr Marsha Berry in the Mobile Media Group at RMIT.
The app meshes real-time imaging with location-based media, showcasing poetry related to specific locations around Melbourne.
