Craig Ireson

Who is Craig Ireson?

Craig Ireson is a Wellington-based, New Zealand performance poet, also known as The Karaoke Poet.

Ireson is the organiser of the Wellington Word Collective, a community oriented collective of Wellington poets that produced the Wellington Word Festival and Newtown Spoken Word, a Wellington Fringe Festival event. The Word Collective's only regular spoken word event is "Howltearoa", a monthly open mic night at the Southern Cross Bar, off Cuba Street, Wellington.

Ireson met Shane Hollands at the Thistle Hall, Wellington shortly before the first Word Festival in 2003 and invited Hollands back down to perform from Auckland. They found a common bond in their 'beat' styled writings and Holland's Literatti, including Miriam Barr and Murray Haddow often travel to Wellington to perform with the Word Collective.

Ireson wrote, produced and performed in two award winning poetry shows: the Sk8Board Poets; and Karaoke Poetry Karaoke Poetry was first staged at BATS Theatre and reprised there in May 2005. A stripped back solo version was also performed at the National Library of New Zealand for their Main Trunk Lines Poetry Exhibition, July 2005.