Brief 60: Let's Get Musical // Giveaway

Brief 60: Let's Get Musical
Deadline: Sunday, 20th October 2013
Music: Wishery by Nick Bertke (Pogo)

Whether you're playing a musical instrument or decks are more your thing, if you're awesome at karaoke or just in the shower- or none of the above at all and just think the above is pretty damn inspiring - it's time to get musical!

NEWS: Sparkapolooza is holding a giveaway! This time around, when you submit your creative response, you will get a chance to win Play: The NYLON Book of Music to add to your coffee table. You will automatically enter the draw as soon as we have receive your submission. A winner will be announced at the end of this brief.

Email your work to sparkapolooza [at] gmail [dot] com, upload to our Facebook page or tag #sparkapolooza on Twitter or Instagram. 

What else are you waiting for?

BRIEF 59: ALL MY FRIENDS

Brief 59: All My Friends
Deadline: Sunday 22nd September 2013
Image: Elisabeth Dunker 

Best friends. Potential friends. Facebook friends. Friends of friends. This brief is about all of them, real or not. 

We accept all mediums so get out your pencils, camera, scissors or tablet. 

Email your work to sparkapolooza [at] gmail [dot] com, upload to our Facebook page or tag #sparkapolooza on Twitter or Instagram. 

Less procrastination, more doing yeah!

By Joanne Chan

There once was a man named George,

with 10 tall daughters and a son,

They drove him crazy with their nonsense,

but mostly, he reflected, life was fun.

The house they lived in was grand,

and people would come gather round to see.

They'd have parties and music and ponies,

and every so often a tee pee.

But one by one they grew older,

and slowly ventured out its door.

Til one George realised 

that his play house had become

no more.

Between night’s dusk at sunrise
By Sean Bidd

Her active days, they rush on by so damn fucking fast,

Far out beyond the nightmares, keeping company the estuarines,

Where the snakes, the vipers sweat each their long days away,

Passing through every deep dark hole between east and west.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

Her time in some of the darkest places, darker than torn souls,

JK walked in out of each nightmare, her world a war torn zone,

For many years have passed, since the doctor she became,

The days the war rages on, her skills she bent a smugglers run.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

Always laid within the thick of it, JK rescued thousands from such wrongs,

Through the chaos day and night, the medicines she brought new friends,

To stem the constant flow of blood, to help revive so many broken lives,

How can such a once quiet place, turn to become a war zone in our time.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

We met so many years ago, JK like the daughter one could love,

Born her wild ways, she walked in tall with a big wide open heart,

Her stance a vantage to good sense in living, her love for others’ ways,

She does not need to think to hard, about when, n’where to lend a hand.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

Brave in her trepidation, many peoples’ in she trusts along the ways,

The places where her life has traveled, the dreams she’s learned to breathe,

While JK walks to greet me, walking slow now in a new found peaceful land,

A daughter’s love to welcome fresh, will always set free this tired old open mind.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

“Where the storms of night’s dusk wave their curtain,

Each one calling brave aloud to her name at sunrise.”

Brief 56: Somebody That I Used To Know

Brief 56: Somebody That I Used To Know
Deadline: 18th May 2013
Image: by Max Wanger

Remember that best friend you had for a semester? Your first crush? The person you had a d&m with and never saw again? This brief is dedicated to someone in your past that you've never quite forgotten. Maybe you knew them for a fleeting moment, or maybe something more- let them be your muse, your starting point, your subject. 

As always, submissions are based on the interpretation of the above, in any medium you like. E-mail your works to: sparkapolooza at gmail dot com or upload to Facebook / Twitter / Instagram and tag us with #sparkapolooza

Happy making!

Incognito by Kate Toon

I wish I were invisible or could crawl back in my shell
Right now this situation is my kind of living hell
‘Hello Jen, yes how are you?’ I say with a weak smile
Gulping back the sickly taste of acidic nervous bile

I hand out all the vol au vents pretending not to see
The way that awful Clive licks his lips and leers at me
Then I scurry to the kitchen to check on the first course
My nails tap on the worktop in some frantic sort of Morse

S.O.S. I’m screaming, just silently inside
Oh please God let the house burn down and let me run and hide
But dinner must be served and I must impress Geoff’s boss
Though really, if I’m honest, I couldn’t give a toss

My face is a fixed grimace as I top up Susan’s gin
Trying to repress the hatred deep within
This night will soon be over and I’ll escape to bed
Until then I am prisoner, trapped inside my head

Birds, not paradise by Sean Biddulph

Paradise is like four walls,
Trapped in a world of little change,
A place of constant colours,
Where textures rarely range.

I'd rather find the fringes,
As the birds they sometimes do,
Or the dark and distant places,
Beyond the walls here set by you.

So give me freedom, not your bird's trapped paradise,
With choices like arcadian, arboreal, and the air,
They come with changing moments, of beauty rich and rare,
From far across a desert, to waters and the mountainsides.

So please give me forests and the plains,
Or somewhere far on out to sea,
Give me places all so different, never static like your mind,
Choose freedom over paradise, surely, you're not that blind.

The choices be to take flight, swim, or run away from here,
For I don't like your walled world, your frozen place in time,
As I live for such diversity, and freedoms so sublime,
I'll not be a bird of paradise, I'll be neither tethered here in fear.

So when chance and opportunity present,
I'll leave this trapped small world of yours,
These thin veiled walls they will not hold,
For once I have my freedom, I will not need your gold...

Birds of Paradise by Kate Toon

Paradise for me
Would be totally bird free
Not a single pigeon shitting
And no tiny sparrows twitting
No bogan mynas blaring
Or evil crows just staring
And I don’t know about you
But I can’t stand cockatoos
It’s a ‘no’ to swans and geese
I really just want peace
That silent empty blue
And space free of emus
A heavenly no fly zone
The time to be alone

Brief 49: The portrait

Brief 49: The portrait

Deadline: Wednesday, 20th June 2012

Image by: Ren Hang

Portraits are about capturing a person- whether your forte is illustration, words, design remember to make it interesting, edgy and make us want to look twice!

Brief 47: The Wheel of Fortune

Brief 47: The Wheel of Fortune

Deadline: Monday, 2 April 2012

Image created by: Jordan Clarke

The Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, is a concept in medieval and ancient philosophy referring to the capricious nature of Fate. This wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna. In the modern days, the Wheel of Fortune is also a game on television and at casinos. One concept, different ways of interpretations. We're also inspired by Kay Starr's music. What's your take on the brief? 

Brief 42: All You Can Eat

Brief 41: All You Can Eat

Due date: Saturday 13th August 2010

Image via: Jeremy Brooks

Party People by Kate Toon

I’m not a party person. I’d rather stay at home.
I never have much fun in a corner all alone.
I like the mini quiches, the dips and sausage rolls,
But the company is rubbish, and the girls are just fat moles.

I end up getting drunk and hiding in the loo.
Well, if you looked like me you’d probably do that too.
I’m not the sort of person that people like to meet.
Maybe it’s the beard or my strangely smelling feet.

I’m happy back at mine just watching Doctor Who.
There’s matchstick boats to make and ironing to do.
I make myself lasagna and settle down on the settee.
I’m happy to be quiet, happy just being me.

And really if you’re honest, you hate parties as well.
You go because you have to, but really know they’re hell.
You get pissed and do things that next day you’ll regret.
And have the kind of evening you’d much rather forget.

At least I can admit it: I think parties are poo.
Home is more relaxing, be honest, it’s so true.
So all you party people can take a running leap.
And I’ll just stay at home and catch up on my sleep.

Special Tea by Kate Toon

I’ve always liked a tea; it’s my favourite by far.
And not those nasty tea bags, but tea leaves from a jar.
Tea smooths out all the creases and eases all the joints.
It’s better than that reiki, for soothing pressure points.

I’m not that keen on coffee, I’ve never liked the taste.
And three dollars for a latte, well that seems like such a waste.
Jack loved a nice hot cuppa, with a sugar stirred just right.
He’d sit and watch his program, supping tea most every night.

I was taking him a mug, when I found him that cold day.
I dropped it from the shock, and the biscuits, and the tray.
He was lying on his back with his feet in the rose bed.
Starring up at the big sky, and I knew that he was dead.

When the ambulance men came, I offered my special tea.
They were gentle with my Jack and very sweet to me.
The woman from the parlour said she wanted hers with skim.
Did I want the coffin open, so folk could stare at him?

I didn’t like her manner nor the tattoo on her knee.
I offered her a biscuit and watched her eat all three.
I had tea served at the wake; there were some that wanted wine.
I didn’t think that that was right, tea suited Jack just fine.

I often think about them ladies, picking tea in India.
And wonder if they think of me, with my feet up in Jack’s chair.
When I’m drinking a nice cuppa, stirring my biscuit round,
I remember my poor Jack, lying cold under the ground.

I hope that he’s in heaven, dunking biscuits just like me.
On a brown sea of satisfaction, an eternity of tea.

by Theresa Watson

The sunshine’s gone
The room is now bear

I reach for the bottle
Forced to prepare

Your laughter is echoing
From memories in frames

You speak to me still
Through your left behind games

The cost of it weighs
There is no more shared cash

Just your blue stained shirt
And a handful of hash

And a pain that’s growing stronger
Each time I think

Did I see you walk right by?
I begin to further sink

I hear a bird speak a joyous tune
Mocking my emptiness and fear

I want to be ok alone
But really
I still just want you near

By Matt Yap

They say that the best things in life are free. I’ll go one further.

I’ll say that you shouldn’t look for happiness in the bottle.

Next time you are asked to bet on red, or black, put all your money on blue,

and walk away.

Don’t buy a pure-breed as your next pet;

feed the birds, play on the swings.

Breathe in the charity and humanity around you,

and let it show in your exhalation.

See those that are trying to find happiness in the spending their earnings.

Observe, and let go of it.

They say that the best things in life are free.

I’ll say that the best things will remain hidden from you

as soon as you approach them with money in your hands.

Enjoy the free-dom.

Maths and Science by Kate Toon

I'm not that good at maths,

my brain don't work that way.

And science is for nerds,

and people who are gay.

I'm pretty good at sports,

and woodwork isn't bad.

But really school is stupid,

the teachers are all sad.

I'd rather have a job,

like Gavin down the street.

he's working for a butcher,

and nicking lots of meat.

He gets to cut up cows,

make sausages and shit.

I reckon I could do that,

I'd be really good at it.

But I've got two more years,

Mum says that I can't go.

I bunk off every day,

She doesn't even know.

With school, it's like, whatever!

Who cares about that stuff?

I'm good at the nintendo.

Isn't that enough?

Brief 34: Math & Science

Brief 34: Math & Science

Due date: Thursday 25th March 2011

Image by Amanda Beth Photography

* Remember, Sparkapolooza is there to motivate you! Therefore all submissions should be created specifically for the brief in the period which means no digging through the archives. Happy creating!

** Hello and welcome to all our new followers!

The Dance by Joanne Chan

They said “you should be dancing”

And I just couldn’t figure out why

I saw them out there flailing about

To tell you the truth, I think I’d rather die.

The men were making silly faces

And the girls were shaking their bums

There some that were doing little jigs

And one who was pretending to run

This went on forever

Until I couldn’t take it anymore

I yelled “STOP”, and they all looked at me

As I strode to take the floor

The crowd hushed to a quiet

The spotlight came on me

A sweet melody started up

And at last, I showed them how it should be

There was none of that ungracefulness

Just a few delicate steps

Ones that would change their world

Ones that would never rest

I called this dance the Monster Mash

And the crowd could clearly see

The was a dance for the future

Now THIS,

this is how it should be

isadora by Hila Shachar


aglow in peach and folds
she ducks and weaves
a flesh-tinged colour that enfolds her skin
unhinging the body, piece by piece
an abbreviation
of something that came before her


stale sir ruffles
she jumps forward, arms awry
each finger is a heralding of modernity
sharp, broken shards of a fugitive history
imperceptibly annihilating


an unappeasable transformation
becoming unmade, unwired
the roar of bare feet on a theatre floor
unprotected by history or pointe

Gone Dotty
By Kate Toon

‘She’s gone dotty’ they said,
the silly old bat.
She talks to her plants and sings to her cat.

‘Her mind’s feeble’ they said,
she’ll have to have help,
with cooking, cleaning and washing herself.

‘Goodbye Fluffy” they said,
As they closed up the cage.
Looking after a cat was too much at her age.

‘You can’t stay here’ they said,
and moved her away,
‘Sunny meadows – a happier place to stay’.

‘You should join in’ they said,
It was bingo night,
The numbers were hard, account of her sight.

‘Eat it up now’ they said,
It didn’t look nice,
All sticky, yellow and covered in rice.

‘Be a good girl’ they said,
If she dared to complain,
And passed her another pill for the pain.

‘Let us help you’ they said,
As they pulled at her tights,
A shower in the morning, a bath at night.

‘You’re untidy’ they said,
And messed with her things.
Her photos, her books, George’s medals, her rings.

‘She’s gone quiet’ they said,
As she sat in her chair,
Day after day, watching ‘free to air’.

‘They go downhill’ they said,
It’s old age you see.
Better you don’t visit, just let her be.

‘See you soon George’ she said,
As she swallowed the lot,
Closed her eyes, smiled and quickly forgot.