REMEMBERING: LAUNCESTONlongpoem

Introduction & Baccground: In October 2001, during the annual Tasmanian Poetry Festival, The Launceston Longpoem was launched.  The concept involved an Internet-based poem, to which anyone with a connection to Launceston could contribute, thus building up, by the time of the 2002 Festival, a very long poem which could then become a community resource.  It was planned all along that ownership of the final version would be vested in the community.

The Launceston Longpoem project was a joint initiative of the Tasmanian Poetry Festival and WALLLESS7250, a loose cooperative of artists across artforms.  In order for the poem to be properly publicised and professionally edited, funding was sought and received through Tasmanian Regional Arts from the Australia Council’s Identity Distinct program.  A Management Committee was set up to oversee the project.

A number of community organisations were approached and asked to encourage their members and contacts to contribute.  As well as the usual media publicity, the Longpoem was publicised by the Launceston Poetry Car, a 1979 red Commodore sedan on which poetry was written.

The Longpoem website had links to other poetry sites, and it also had a separate page  for the ‘Ravo’ poems, a book-length sequence of poems set in the Launceston suburb of Ravenswood, written by M.M.L. Bliss, who retains copyright of these poems.  At her request, these poems do not appear as part of this copy of the Longpoem, but will be published separately, in book form.

It is impossible to calculate how many individual contributors there were to the Longpoem, because it appears that some contributed on several separate occasions, some did so anonymously and there were some collaborative contributions, but an estimate puts the number at between 150 and 200.  Some contributed hundreds of lines, some one line or even less.

The aim of the Longpoem becoming a community resource was realised even before the contributions had all come in.  An appropriate selection was read and sung at the opening of the Launceston Little Lawn in June 2002, there were weekly readings over ABC Radio Northern Tasmania, and a selection was read at the Launceston launch of International Refugee Week in October 2002. 

The initial phase of the Launceston Longpoem project ended at the Tasmanian Poetry Festival in October 2002, with readings from the Longpoem, but the poem itself continues to exist as a resource.  Feel free to use any excerpts from it whenever you feel the need for poetry in your life. To facilitate this we have included a subject index. 

Tim Thorne

Editor/Curator, Launceston Longpoem, Launceston, October 2002