Hello! I am Josh Cake. I do the following things:
comedy, music, poetry, death (eventually)
POETRY ALBUM
52 minutes of poetry by Josh Cake, the #1 ranked poet in the National Poetry Slam (Australia).
01 ode to the clearing / 02 welcome to this thing to be forgotten / 03 how am i doing for time / 04 some people feel things all the time / 05 the first building we closed to rising sea levels / 06 the ashes / 07 getting used to it / 08 processed the fires, very chill about the pandemic / 09 at the supermarket, a real man / 10 a tiny bit of hope / 11 when can kids be trusted with boiling water / 12 good places to grieve / 13 did my friend die for nothing / 14 a boring city worker meets two artists / 15 i am tired of being pizza / 16 i'd rather die screaming / 17 jacarandas are good punctuation / 18 i write about hope
comedy tour
GENDER IS A SCAM AND I AM WINNING
An uplifting musical comedy playing with intersections between race, nationality, and gender.
The best joke Josh ever told was during a terrorist attack in Paris in 2015. Josh will tell this joke, other jokes, and sing songs containing jokes.
Josh Cake (any pronouns) has external identities of brown, Australian, man. All of these are scams and Josh feels no internal connection to any of them.
However, Josh is in this game for the money and power.
Josh is sticking with Australian for the strong passport, sticking with man for the numerous benefits, and sticking with brown because that one is too hard to modify.
Josh will consider other options if offered a better deal.
"Josh Cake sets a new standard for cabaret" ★★★★★ – The Recruiting Officer
"A stunningly intelligent performer ... bold, absurd, and committed" ★★★★★ – Red Kangaroo
"A masterful display of meticulously timed hilarity" ★★★★★– The Bullock
ALLOCATION EXHAUSTED
MORE DATES ADDED SOON
WANT ME TO WRITE FOR YOU?
I WRITE MUSIC, COMEDY, AND POETRY.
IT IS RECOMMENDED TO BOOK COMMISSIONS IN ADVANCE TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT.
I’ve won a lot of awards and 5-star reviews. I can make people laugh and cry (some of the reviews get into this in great detail).
Things I have written for other people include:
soundtracks for films, video games, spoken word albums, and theatre productions
keys, guitar, singing, and rap recordings for musicians
music and lyrics for comedians, cabaret performers, playwrights, historians, and art galleries
poems for radio, stage, books, journals, and gallery installations
scripts for stage, film, and online content
essays and articles on sport, climate change, politics, and showering
No matter what your project is, if you think you might like some music, comedy, or poetry for it, let me know. Feel free to be as detailed as you like - nothing is weird to me any more.
POETRY WORKSHOP
Writer's Block Begone! A workshop on prolific idea generation for poets of all levels
ALL DATES SOLD OUT
What if every time you wanted to write poetry, you simply could? Leave the fear of a blank page in the past and forget the words "I don't have any ideas right now".
In this workshop with Josh Cake, poets of all levels will unlock a toolbox of techniques to rapidly generate ideas, break writer's block, and filter the results. We'll play with connecting separate ideas into the same poem, and delve into the joys of writing in response to other artworks (ekphrastic poetry). We'll share our work and have fun with words.
Everyone will leave with new poems, new poem drafts to finish later, and the tools they need to never have writer's block ever again.
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Josh Cake has won the National Poetry Slam (Australia), the Best Multilingual Performer award from Arts de Paris, the Best Multidisciplinary Artist from the Whitlam Awards, and the Peseroff Poetry Prize from the University of Massachusetts. Josh has featured at Open Secret (Paris), Un Tubo (Siena), and the P Word Sessions (Melbourne), and has published poems in Cordite, Breakwater Review, Teesta Review, and Messages from the Embers.
Josh makes poetry, music, and comedy for contexts ranging from Canadian spoken word to Icelandic cabaret, from US video games to Chinese university workshops, from TEDx to the ABC, from the Poetry Brothel Paris to the National Gallery of Victoria. Josh teaches writing and performance workshops as well as one-on-one coaching. In 2023, Josh is taking a spoken word collection called words to regret when I’m better at editing on a final Australian east coast circuit before commencing a year long world tour in November.
RECENT CONTENT
WANT ME TO PERFORM FOR YOU?
i perform music, comedy, and poetry.
I’ve performed thousands of live shows around Australia, Italy, and France, including:
singalong piano bars (yes, I take requests)
concerts (solo, or with some of my talented friends)
weddings, funerals, public and private parties
stand-up comedy, musical comedy, sketch comedy, and improv
spoken word/poetry
hosting everything from trivia nights, academic awards, and corporate functions to festival events and charity fundraisers
presenting live TV, radio, and online shows
theatre and cabaret (yes, I do consulting too)
crossovers with sport (happy to play cricket, netball, rugby etc with a live mic)
No matter what your show is, if you’d like to have me there, let me know. Feel free to be as detailed as you like - nothing is weird to me any more.
THROWBACK FEATURE OF THE MONTH:
3CR SPOKEN WORD
Tune in to Spoken Word on 3CR to hear Josh Cake in conversation with Carmen Main. Featuring a selection of Josh’s poems, as well as strong opinions on poetry.