Seventeen (visceral) is a long poem written and performed by myself, with music by Gemma Nourse.

The show distills two years of thinking and feeling after a terrible event in which one of my high school friends was killed by another person that we went to high school with.

Seventeen (visceral) presents a fictional protagonist and a fictional friendship which ends in murder. Though, I must admit that many of the phrases and themes in the show come from the poetry that I wrote to work through the murder that truly did occur. The show tries to capture the ways that trust, memory and blame change depending on the information we have about a murderer, and tries to call into question the ways we repatriate criminals with mental illness.

Seventeen (visceral) was performed at the You Are Here festival 2016, Canberra.

This show is tough for me to perform, so I’m not sure that I’m going to do it again, but perhaps I will for the right audience.

A big thank you to Gemma for coming with me on this ride through the pine trees.