Building upon last year's wildly successful 'FRAMED!' event, bad apple and Enjoy Contemporary Art Space reunite for National Poetry Day 2024. This year we move away from the gallery walls for inspiration and instead focus on the musicality in our lives to set the tracklist for 'The bad apple Mixtape'.

From 6:30pm on Friday, August 23rd, local queer poets will come together at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space to read poems created in response to the music that permeates their lives. Ballads your dad hums absentmindedly, angsty emo punk pop hits from your youth, Korean pop masterpieces your little sister blasts from a worn-put speaker, old school waiata from down the marae that you don't really know the words to—it's this messy musicality we reach out for for this mixtape.

All are welcome to come along, to enjoy some kai and inu, and revel in the wealth of local poetic talent! bad apple's open collection for National Poetry Day is an opportunity for all takatāpui, MVPFAFF and LGBTQIA+ people who write poetry to be seen, whether it is their first time publishing and performing, or their fiftieth. All poetry from 'The bad apple Mixtape' collection will also be available to read on badapple.gay.

bad apple is an online LGBTQ+ arts and literary journal focusing on publishing work by individuals living in or from Aotearoa. It acts as a living archive for queer art and performance and aims to respond to the needs of its community. bad apple has produced live performances such as The Showcase and future ANCESTORS for Basement Theatre, has collaborated with Gus Fisher Gallery to publish the zine A Blind Kind of Violence in response to Derek Jarman's arts practices, and has a book publishing arm in Āporo Press.