Poets from all over Australia are expected at the 2024 Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup this weekend.  

Alasdair Carter, last year's winner, will be back as a judge for the finals this year.  

“This year, there's about 15 unknowns. I love the unknown because you just never know who's going to be in there,” Gail Clarke, the poetry competition organiser, said.

The poets are competing for the title of World Cup Champion and $2000, “And a huge cup to take home with them. Then they come back the following year as a judge, so they can't compete again in the next year.”

There is also a people's choice winner, which was won by Andrew Spencer, a local poet from the Northern Rivers Region last year.

(Alasdair and his winning cup)

Alasdair Carter recited a witty piece, “His poem was on masculinity and manhood. And how to teach boys. He was brilliant. Fantastic,”

Poets from Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and NSW competed last year. “It’s always interesting because you don’t know what their work will be about, but they always put their best foot forward to win.

“One woman called Candy Royale (from Sydney), she unfortunately died, but she was one of my all-time favourites. She was so determined to win, she came back five or six times.”

(Last years entrants - Vincent Stead, Jane Treasure, David Hallett, Andrew Spencer, Thomas Bailey, Gail Clarke, Alasdair Carter, Jess, Josh Cake, Deb Felton, Damien Becker)

Each entrant gets 8 minutes on stage. “ I always warn them, you’ve got to time it because you go too far over, you start losing points. You go too far under, you lose points.”

The World Cup is held at the Nimbin School of Arts, 47 Cullen Street, Nimbin. It will be catered, “Always good food, excellent.”

It starts on Saturday the 7th of September at 10am-ish and goes until 5 or 6pm-ish.....Nimbin time.

Sunday, there are two heats at 12noon and 2pm before the finals, “The cafes open from six o'clock, and the show actually starts about seven-ish. 

“When we start, we go through all the poets first, let them all perform, then we have a break, and the judges go off and deliberate. And sometimes that can take five minutes. Other times, it can take an hour.

“That time, I told them, you've got to make a decision. Come on, they've eaten all the cakes!”

This year, Gail is putting together a book, “We've published a couple of books before, but this one's going to be a Culture Cup. The book will be worked on after this year's cup.” If you are interested, make sure Gail knows.

When asked about the international aspect of the Cup, Gail said, “We haven’t had an entry from overseas yet. It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek idea - we consider ourselves at the centre of the universe! 🙂”

Follow the Facebook event here.

Watch Alasdair’s winning performance from last year, here.