On Roundtable Readings
Lili Ward grew up between salt and sand in a New South Wales beach town, relocating to the city of Melbourne as a teenager. Departing from a religious upbringing, she switched to a life leaning into her interests in the arts. Now, 23 years old and with a Bachelors of fine arts to credit it- creativity absorbs her professional and personal world. She describes a large part of herself lies with making music. She practices music solo as well as collaboratively, describing her connection to music in a particularly intimate way; “My lyricism and poetry are in a symbiotic relationship, one feeding the other and so forth.” Writing has always been a pillar for Lili, doing so creatively since childhood and committing to the journal-keeping rituals since the age of 12- something recognised as fuel for new writing material. Roundtable Readings- a space which is held for poetry readings and sharing writing, is her expression of this love for the written word. Lili’s favourite part of running Roundtable is the people she gets to meet, and the ability to sift through pages upon pages of confessional emails, though this does not diminish the many admin-style tasks that come with it; writing submission posts, organising sponsors, sourcing event spaces, compiling publications and the millions of emails. Roundtable is run solely by Lili, entailing everything from event organising to book binding. Though through the help of some “beautiful friends along the way,” it’s made a much more fun, collaborative process with fellow artist and writer friends who aid in the curation and orchestration of events.
As an operation that’s based on a system involving curation, through having to filter through submissions, what is involved in curating the lineups?
The process started off less curatorial. At the first Roundtable, I only received maybe four or five more than I needed to fill the time I had allocated for the reading, so I took what I could. I was lucky to have had so many talented friends submit work that I was genuinely really connected to and passionate about. The first three Roundtables were consolidated by themes: Divinity, Suburbia, and Water. These made it easier to curate the readings as well because I wanted to facilitate an event where each poem or reading interconnected with the next. Now, onto my sixth event and nearly a year on, I receive up to one hundred submissions per event, and this has changed the curation process immensely. It's a very bizarre kind of situation to put myself in when having the power to curate, because i don't have any monopoly on what is ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’ writing. I don't claim to know what that means, but I wield this odd power when I’m receiving super intimate and confessional pieces of writing from people I’ve never met. I've had to create a sort of rubric to help myself out that hinges itself on my personal taste, diversity, length, style variations and so on. But being able to go through these hundreds of pages of people's lives and stories is such a crazy privilege to me.
What connections have you grown through hosting these readings?
Endless. I have been so consistently surprised at every event and even online to the super positive feedback I receive. I’ve been able to meet and host writers and poets I have admired since I first started writing poetry, and that has been such a trip for me. I've met so many people I never would have otherwise interacted with and have had to become comfortable with talking intimately with complete strangers. I remember messaging my friends the day before the first event asking them to all come because I didn't think I'd fill the room, only to have people piling up and listening down the stairs the next night. Being able to publish and create a space for so many great writers has meant I cross paths with some of the most passionate and eager people I've ever met. Particularly the women, I've been so happy to be inundated with so many submissions from young women and so much gratitude for an opportunity to perform and voice their poetry, which has been a massive motivator for me as a writer, and to continue the events.
And more recently, at the last two events, being able to explore the intersection between spoken word and lyrical poetry.
How does ambience and setting a space play an important role in the showcases? Does playing with seating, sound, and space play an intentional role in setting the scenery for the audience?
I think the space is super important and has become something I’ve gotten to experiment with more as I’ve expanded the locations of the readings. Initially, as the events were at a bar, there was little I could really do feng shui-wise, but I always wanted it to be simple and intimate. It was just a mic, an amp, and a bunch of chairs. I want the space to feel familiar, to make performance less daunting for readers and facilitate the connection with listeners. With the last two events, I've been able to work with the space a little more and had the freedom to explore stage setups. In the bluestone church, I had a raised stage and various rugs, lamps, and scarves I brought from home. My lack of finances influences the aesthetic a lot, but I'm drawn to the DIY-ness of it. I think it creates a sort of naive approachability to the events. In the Norla Dome I was kind of intimated by the architecture, it's such a beautiful and unique space that adding too much felt wrong, to honour it I really just kept it simple with a space for music and a chair for readers. I had the audience sit on the ground, which I do prefer in the readings if possible, even at some points lying down, which there was a lot of in the dome, partly due to the trance that the dome reverb puts you in and the sauna-like nature of it when filled with a hundred bodies.
With this in mind, how do you go about locating spaces to hold readings? Is sourcing locations difficult, or does it come naturally?
The original idea was that Roundtable would be held in my backyard or somewhere of the sort, but I, on a whim, reached out to a friend who at the time managed Dickstein’s bar. I was offered the upstairs space for free, so that's where the first three Roundtable Readings were hosted, which I am super grateful for, having an already established venue helped to legitimise me pretty early on, and it's always helpful to have a bar in the space, dual activities and such. Eventually the events started to outgrow that space with the increasing numbers of attendees, I think I also felt like it was time for me to have a little more freedom with the events, being able to explore the possibilities of performance and stage setup etc. From there, the first event I had outside of Dickstein’s was at the bluestone church arts space in Footscray, which is this beautiful converted heritage-listed church in Footscray. It's a space I had known about from living in the area and attending a few plays and performances there over the years, but I came across it on Creative Spaces. Creative Spaces have been super great for finding event venues, especially as I run the business out of pocket, being able to lean on community arts centres and spaces is super helpful. Then, after that, the last event was at The Norla Dome at The Mission to Seafarers in Docklands, which is another space I found on Creative Spaces. I emailed back and forth with the booking manager and was able to get the space for free as they were super into what Roundtable was about, and the event brought a lot of business for the bar. I definitely want to keep expanding and changing up the venues and the nature of the events, so I'm on the lookout for cool spaces at the moment.
How do you think Roundtable Readings, and community-led services like it contribute to nourishing the local arts community?
The main thing I wanted to do with Roundtable was to create a platform that my friends and I wanted to be a part of. I felt like there was endless opportunities for experimentation in visual art and music around Melbourne, being able to go to gigs and exhibitions every week, and I knew that all the visual artists and musicians I knew were also writers in some respect, but I felt like there were definitely less spaces to share varying forms of writing as they were. I’m just aiming to fill a gap in creative spaces and facilitate an event of storytelling and conversations about poetry. I receive such great feedback from people who attend and readers that confirm that creating this platform for my own writing has really been fulfilling other people's desire to share their work as well. I think the more creative initiatives and projects and events, the better, especially those run by young artists and those promoting accessibility. I think throughout the evolution of these events, it's clear that I am learning as I go, and I hope my eagerness can foster an approachability and encourage others to be open to putting their ideas and projects out into the community, even in their naive infancy.
Is there an art medium you wish to see more submissions of?
I have had such a variation of submissions, while most are poetry in a sense, I’ve received essays, listicles, sound collages, micro fictions and larger fiction pieces. More recently I’ve been able to pair the readings with different kind of performance pieces which is something I want to continue to do, I think mixing an event with poetry and music can be an easier way in for audience members who are maybe undecided about spoken word performance, and showing the written word in its various forms. At the Bluestone Church Arts Space, Kirby Casilli performed a movement piece mixed with a sound collage and spoken word over the top (which is on the Roundtable Readings Youtube), which was incredible, especially in the super dimly lit church. Maggie Kontev also performed that night, on her theremin which is always super entrancing. At the dome, Izzy Martin read her poem over different noises collaged on her synth. I think this crossover between sound experimentation and spoken word is something I would love to see more of.
Roundtable has previously shown themed nights of divinity, suburbia, and water. What thought or inspiration fuels these themes? Do you have themes readily in mind to explore?
I really don’t even know, I sometimes just keep notes of random words I like. Before I opened the first submissions I just wrote down a bunch of words I was drawn to at the time for possible future themes, here are some: Superfoods, prospect, pursuits, emails, medication, diaries, weekday, confessional, teenager, etc…
People should write lists of all words relevant to their life and send it to me so I can have future themes to draw from.
Through modes of blog posts, letter writing, journal entries, reviews, and poems among all forms of writing, what is most interesting about exploring the written word and how it stays relevant across changing times?
I think the written word is in a super transformative place at the moment, there are so many forms of writing and documentation, we are kind of constantly by default keeping a diary of our lives in various forms across the internet. It also means we are pretty saturated by text and information at all times, so we skim more than we used to. That kind of makes everything a poem; text messages, emails, shopping lists, playlists.
In the spirit of book lovers, do you have a favourite read?
Hard one, I think maybe ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’ by Jeannette Winterson or You Are a Little Bit Happier Than I Am by Tao Lin.
Through actioning Roundtable Readings, are there any niche stories or quirky challenges you’ve encountered in the process?
I think everything that has happened with Roundtable has been pretty unexpected; it was just a sort of seed-of-an-idea that I took a chance on executing one day, and the response has been so surprising. I think just being thrust into navigating and running my own business by myself with little to no experience has definitely been a challenge. I was completely unprepared for the responsibilities but I have managed so far! I think I was also kind of unprepared for how much I would have to talk to people, a big part of this which I’m super in love with is showing up to a bar or a space and trying to work out what the readers look like. I’m interacting with people who have sent me confessionals about their mothers or ten page love poems and I have no idea what they even look like. I show up and look for the ten people who look the most kind of nervous and approach them hoping they are readers. I get a lot of niche stories, I guess. I love guessing what parts of people's writings are true or made up. I think auto fiction is massively popular in the submissions, and reading these kind-of-unbelievable anecdotes is super amusing.
Provided by RountableReadings
Sharing one’s art or work can be an extremely vulnerable process, do you have any advice for those nervous to make that jump?
I'm hoping that projects like Roundtable Readings becoming more popular will promote comfortability in people sharing their writing. I think we are super used to oversharing on the internet and not so much in real life, but people are so much more nosy and curious about other people's emotions and lives than they admit. I think that's part of what draws people to these readings. They are excited to see a part of a friend or a familiar face that they have yet to meet in regular conversation, and I think trusting that people are just excited to hear about other people's experiences and narratives helps ease the nerves. Also just keep doing it, read your diary to your housemate or your partner or your parents that's how the idea for Roundtable came about. We just wanted to read each other's diaries and poetry, and then I wanted to read everyone else's, too.
How does community support play a role in fuelling Roundtable Readings?
I mean it is by and for the community. It doesn’t exist without them. I put out this idea into the community and just trust that people will submit and show up and they consistently have in always such a surprising way.
How do you want to see Roundtable evolve in the future?
I feel like it has just naturally grown and transformed over the past year, and as I start to understand how to reach more people and understand what I want to do with it, it will just expand on its own. I think the progression of melding performance, poetry, and music has been really seamless and is definitely something I will continue on with. In the future, I plan to publish books not only exclusive to the events but of collected poetry from previous readings or even collected poems from a single reader. I’m just excited to explore different spaces and ways to hold events, and I’ve been intrigued by the ways it has already kind of morphed, so just following its natural trajectory seems like the pipeline.
Questions by Katia Zografos, Words by Lili Ward