KAUPAPA
Poetry Live exists to enable poets to share their work with a supportive audience.
Guiding Values
1. Inclusion - All poets welcome: Poets of all levels of experience and all backgrounds are welcome at Poetry Live and encouraged to sign up for the open mic. We celebrate poetry in all its forms and everyone who creates it.
2. Respect: Poetry Live is a place where we demonstrate respect for and kindness towards each other. This means for the person reading, for the audience receiving our words, and for other community members.
3. Tautoko - Support and encouragement: Poetry Live is a place where poets can support and encourage each other in their writing and sharing. We provide a physical space where poets can give voice to experiences and stories that may often go unspoken or unheard.
4. Creative freedom: Poetry Live aims to be a safe place for creative expression, for experimentation, for trying things out, for being brave and taking creative risks. This does not entitle people to the freedom to promote prejudice or violence, or to misuse the platform to disrespect other poets who are part of the community: see values 1-3.
5. Creative connection: We connect poets with each other, with audiences, and with the diverse variety of poetry being created in New Zealand and beyond. Being part of a community can help us to grow, be inspired and build each other up to continue writing and sharing poetry.
6. Creative development: Poetry Live cares about giving poets opportunities to develop their craft and practice. The open mic allows anyone to share their work and receive a response from their audience. The guest poet spots enable us all to hear from established and emerging voices and allows these poets an opportunity to share a more extended selection of their work, to try new things, to invite collaborations, or test new ideas.
TALK TO US
If you ever feel these values have not been upheld in some way, please speak to a member of the emcee team as we will want to understand so we can do what we can to resolve the situation or prevent it recurring in future. You can do this by talking to a team member at one of our events or by emailing the team at poetrylive@gmail.com