Poetica - podcasts of Australian poets

To quote from the ABC email about this:

A Pod of Poets is a unique partnership between ABC Radio National's Poetica http://abc.net.au/rn/poetica program and the Australia Council for the Arts that brought eleven
Australian poets to the microphone to read and talk about their writing.

The project was inspired by Poetica's audience who consistently request podcasts of programs, a difficult request to fulfil because of copyright restrictions. Each of the forty-minute Pod of Poets episodes is read by the author and features only rights-free music, enabling the podcasts to be created.


"The Poetica podcast series A Pod of Poets will extend the connection between poetry lovers, students and some of Australia's leading contemporary poets," said Poetica presenter Mike Ladd.


"The intimacy of hearing the poets read and discuss their works is enhanced by images and sounds and transcripts of poems and interviews. This is a way of engaging with poetry in the 21st century and the series brings good poetry to the ipod generation."


The eleven podcasts recorded and produced by Poetica, include established and emerging poets: Robert Adamson, Les Murray, Joanne Burns, John Kinsella, Josephine Rowe, Craig Billingham, L.K. Holt, Aidan Coleman, Jayne Fenton Keane, Martin Harrison, Sam Wagan Watson, Kathryn Lomer, Esther Ottaway, John Clarke and Jordie Albiston.


The A Pod of Poets website (abc.net.au/rn/poetica) includes all podcasts, transcripts, photographs and biographical information about each of the poets.


This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the  Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

In reponse to the first comment: storing these: I'd suggest getting your English teachers to download these into iTunes.  I don't currently store podcasts at school, but it's certainly something to look at.

Culture Now: a social magazine about art, design and media

What is this?  It's a Playpump.  The Playpump is a great way to make clean water available to people in third world countries. The pump is essentially a merry go round which is powered by kids or adults and serves to retrieve water from deep below the earth. With most schools in deprived regions not being able to afford playgrounds for children, the Playpump addresses more than one problem simultaneously.

I found this, and a cornucopia of other items on modern culture, art, design, media, at Culture Now.

The Playpump is an example of its offerings in the Objects section (read more, and see a diagram of how it works here).  The Objects section has a bunch of fascinating subsections:

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  Art
• 
  
  Exterior
• 
  
  Extraordinary
• 
  
  Gadgets
• 
  
  Graphics
• 
  
  Interior
• 
  
  Personal
• 
  
  Utilitarian
• 
  
  Vehicles

The Interior one, for example, has great examples of current modern design featuring designers such as Kareem Rashid.  Useful for Design and Technology and other subjects too.  Explore.  Tell your colleagues and let them explore too.

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Culture.gov.au

This is the header of culture.gov.au, the Australian culture and recreation portal.    What's it for?

The Culture and Recreation Portal provides access to online services and information in the fields of culture and recreation, from all levels of government and the non-government sector. It is an initiative of the Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.

Categorised links in a bunch of different categories, a search engine and more.  Worth a look.  There's also a free monthly e-newsletter to which you can subscribe.

Graffiti Artist by Abrakadoodle.com

This amuses me - and it has school possibilities, as you can print the results of your (or your students') work. From Widgetbox. And there are other widgets over there you might like. Go look. (No, I'm not paid to say that).

I've always liked the canny simplicity of Keith Haring's work. Apart from Visual Arts, how much fun could you have with this devising library signage? Just drag an image up into the white space, or click left/right to see what other colours/images you can play with.

A silent play, with 450 characters and 27 actors

Amid the mind-boggling array of gadgets and gimmicks drawn to the internet world's attention on Book of Joe, an account of a play that may intrigue drama teachers - or at least prompt useful discussion about what is essential to a play, or drama, or stage performance.

The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other by Peter Handke (at London's National Theatre, February 2008).

A few days ago he also linked to an excellent interview with actor Daniel Day Lewis (related to the premiere of There Will Be Blood for which he has been nominated for Best Actor).

(While these are Usefuls, gee whiz I do chuckle at some of Joe's finds!)