Overload Critic Amy Bodossian - 'Poets Are Vulnerable Egotists'

Slam Up Overloaded's next critic for coverage of Overload Poetry Festival is Melbourne poet Amy Bodossian. Her work has been nominated for a prestigious Green Room Award and in 2008 she won the SA Young Women Writers’ Award.Since moving to Melbourne from Adelaide two years ago, she has appeared on Spicks and Specks, performed at the Woodford Folk Festival, and headlined at all of Melbourne’s major poetry evenings. Her spoken word/cabaret show, Phlegm Fatale sold out this year in both the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Adelaide Cabaret Fringe, and received rave reviews.

What's that you protest? Another Overload poet as a reviewer? She might review herself? That isn't ethical? What kind of festival coverage is this? Whooooa, settle down, the whole deck of cards is on the table, and they're all facing up. And if you know Amy at all, Melbourne-co-poet-wrath is not enough to stop her trashing a set where required...in fact, just quietly, I reckon she'd relish it. Here, Amy talks fear, dressing gowns and poets streaked in blood:

So, it's your first time reviewing the festival. Are you afraid? Tis my first time.
Should I be afraid?

Of course you should be! Are you insane?
Yes.

Which events are you planning on reviewing at Overload?
The formidable Koraly Dimitriadis at Passionate Tongues. And whatever bones I am thrown.

What kind of reviewer are you going to be? Should the poets be afraid... very afraid?
I am gently brutal. Lovingly viscous. If the poets are authentic and have conviction, and if they love the beauty of stringing words together, they have nothing to fear.

What will be the worst thing about reviewing the festival?
I know most of the poets. Poets are vulnerable egotists. How do i know? I am one.

The best?
I love analysing art.

Can you be bought?
Depends on the bidder.

Are you dressed like a poet?
Yes. I am in a dressing gown.

If poets had a uniform, what would it look like?Oh there are so many options. Naked, streaked in blood, is one that springs to mind.

Wax lyrical:I'mma gonna criticise ya, analyse ya...won't disguise ma...opinions either...just surrender to the splendour of my not so well concealed agenda...if ya not afraid to show it, then you i don't see how you'll blow it...open up and let us in...take us every place you've been...show us what's beneath your skin...may the most authentic win