Winery Long Table Lunch with The Naked Poet, The Inglorious Bardster & The Ratbag of Rhyme

On Sunday 24th of April, we are hosting the opening event for the South West Bush Poets Festival – a long table lunch at our winery for up to 60 guests with 3 of Australia’s best known and highly regarded bush poets.

Poetry, I hear you sigh and groan … BUT bush poetry is oh so very, very different from the poetry you remember from your school days! It’s a uniquely Australian combination of storytelling and stand-up comedy.

Being poetry, the stories do have rhythm and they do rhyme, but they are so much more than poems, they are stories about people, places and situations which are highly entertaining and enthralling to listen to.

After spending a few hours on Sunday afternoon with Marco, Col and Neil, you will leave feeling relaxed and genuinely happy. As well having enjoyed a 3 course meal of locally sourced produce, matched with a selection of our artisan, handmade wines.

 Book Your Ticket for the Bush Poets Long Table Lunch

The Naked Poet – Marco Gliori

Marco was born, raised and educated in Warwick, Queensland. After graduating from Warwick State High School Marco joined and served 10 years in the Queensland Police Service attaining the rank of Detective Senior Constable. Always the mischievous maverick, even as a copper, he left to pursue his love of performance poetry, and has forged a successful career from what is an obvious passion. Marco now lives on 62 acres on the Darling Downs with his wife Julie, where they raised three daughters, and have strong community ties.

Marco is highly regarded across Australia, having been awarded the Spirit of  Waltzing Matilda Award by ABC National Radio, presented to him by the late great Slim Dusty, and in recent years was selected by The Australian Women’s Weekly as their modern day ‘Banjo Paterson’, a comparison that Marco immediately rejects.

“No-one could emulate what writers like Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson achieved, but I’m happy and privileged to continue the tradition”

In his early days Marco toured with the Queensland and Victorian Arts Council’s Artist in Education Program for over a decade, connecting with the youth of Australia, face to face, celebrating this land and her characters, with an upbeat attitude, all the while building a fan-base amongst younger readers.

Marco’s authentic working class background, his sense of community and empathy for the characters that inspire him, complimented by a wicked and sometimes warped sense of humour, allow him to create an atmosphere of mateship accompanied by a big slice of respect for those who have gone before us.

Marco is as versatile as a Rugby League playing, former Queensland Detective of Italian heritage can be! “The funniest and most inspirational people I have met will never grace a stage, what a privilege it is to write about them and to share their stories”

The Inglorious Bardster – Colin Driscoll

Col was born into a Victorian farming family in 1961. Taken from his mother at birth, Col’s life could have been very different had he not been washed, dried, wrapped in a blanket and returned to her by the midwife several minutes later.

As a lad, Col’s passion for poetry was evident in the many rhymes and ditties he made up on the school bus about kids less fortunate than him. These days they call it bullying, but back then it was funny as all buggery!

Col can remember sitting on his Grandfather’s knee beside the old radiogram, listening intently to the stories of Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson and dreaming that one day he too could be just like them – famous, old and drunk.

Over the last 20 years, Col and his partner Jenny have traveled extensively throughout outback Australia where Col has worked as a Tour Guide in such iconic places as Ayers Rock, Kakadu, the Gulf of Carpentaria and The Kimberley. He has been a bush poet for about 20 years too, gaining his inspiration from those innocent days growing up on the farm, as well as the sights he has seen, the places he has visited and the fascinating people he has met and bullied during his travels around Australia.

In his poetry, Col strives to capture the colours, the humour, the hardships and the spirit of Australia in a style that saw him win the prestigious Golden Damper Award at the 2009 Tamworth Bush Poetry Competition. He has recently taken to live theatre playing the role of Samuel Hofmeister AKA Teh Jolly Swagman, in the acclaimed musical stage play – The Man They Call the Banjo which reveals teh secret history behind the penning of our nations favourite song Waltzing Matilda.

Now that he’s getting on in age and is often intoxicated, Col reckons he only needs to get just slightly more famous and he will have fulfilled his childhood dream of being just like Banjo and Henry, the only difference being that their widows weren’t left with a bucket load of CDs to get rid of after they died.

The Ratbag of Rhyme – Neil McArthur

Bush Poet and Australian Bush Poets Association (ABPA) Editor, and a writer and performer who uses the vehicle of traditional Aussie rhyme and meter to tell yarns about the contemporary life of the true Aussie ratbags and larrikins.

“The illegitimate son of a depressed circus clown and a wayward one-legged nun”, Neil has been on the road for well over 20 years, with his sole mission being to use his collected Aussie yarns to put a grin on the dial of every Aussie he meets.

A regular performer and MC at Australia’s most popular Festivals, this Ratbag of Rhyme tries his hardest to cause mayhem and halt the ‘politically correct’ crusade infiltrating the country at present. From Gay farmhands to Shooting Swaggies, From Euthanasing his Grandpa to crashing into the one tree in a thousand miles, nothing is sacred, but all within a language friendly and non-offensive style.

Neil is a regular co-host at the Gympie National Music Muster, organiser and MC at the famous Longyard Poets Breakfast at the Tamworth Country Music Festival as well as the Mildura Country Music Festival, the 3 biggest crowd pulling Poets Breakfasts in the country.

Having a very young exposure to music and playing guitar/songwriting in many bands of different genres from punk rock, heavy metal, jazz and nwo country rock, he found it a fairly smooth transition into writing and performing bush poetry.

Many of his works, both comedy and serious are being performed by many other poets both nationally and internationally and he is currently finding his feet once more with guitar and ukulele playing and is in the process of forming his new band, Neil Nasty and The Nimbin Love Children.

Seats are selling fast, so Book Your Ticket now for the Bush Poets Long Table Lunch