Masters of the spoken word go for gold this Friday to win the 2010 state championship title of Victoria’s Poetry Slam. Victoria decides!
Masters of the spoken word go for gold this Friday to win the 2010 state championship title of Victoria’s Poetry Slam. Victoria decides!
Some kids want to be firemen when they grow up. Others look on to mummy and daddy’s daily nine-to-five onslaught, working for The Man by day and the Little Ones at night, and say, “Hells no! When I grow up, I’m joining the circus.” And then there are kids who want to make a living off doing what they do best: yapping their traps.
So, when an opportunity to win big cash prizes and world glory comes knocking at these performance poets’ doors, they bring out the good china and invite it in for tea and Anzac bickies.
Once again, the Australian Poetry Slam is on its yearly hunt for Australia’s Next Top
Performance Poet.
“The prizes this year are amazing…It’s going to be crazy hot,” says Slam MC, Emily ‘Easy Bee’ Zoe Baker.
This year, two lucky spoken word sensations will be whisked away to Asian places like Beijing, Ubud and Bali. On this $11,000 all expenses paid trip, the winners will rub shoulders with the literary in-crowd and share their gifts of the gab in workshops, performances and presenting panels.
On top of living the good life overseas, Baker says the trip will give two poetry dreamers “priceless professional development.”
“Think,” Baker says, “drinking champagne in a palace, conversing with Louis de Bernières or discussing dub poetry with Benjamin Zephaniah in Tiananmen Square. Pure, solid sweetness baby.”
Could it be you? Perhaps, on the condition that you’ve already won one of the recent Slam heats that have drawn throngs of wordsmith wannabes across Melbourne, competing for the respect and validation that all poetry slammers pine for. “We have a few novice performers mixed in with some old schoolers. Some up and coming hip hop superstars like ‘Lesson’ aka Luka Haralampou, and Meena Shamaly alongside newbies Nour Abouzeid and Lauren Dunningham,” boasts Baker or her fresh poetry pets.
The list of Vic Slam finalists also includes poetry professional Ezra Bix, Nathan Curnow, Tariro Mavondo and Geoffrey Graham. Forget the old clichéd poet dressed as a mime busker who terrorises the streets of Paris, waving a cigarette about as if to create some kind of smoke machine-like shield to hide from the onslaught of rotten tomatoes to come.
Performance poetry is taking on a new edge worldwide, and Australia is slowly becoming seduced. “Australia is the new kid on the block in the international slam world,” says Baker.
“The Australian Poetry Slam has only been running for four years and it’s like a drooling toddler, still quite literally finding its feet, its poets and its audience. Slam is huge overseas. They fill stadiums in the States… The more we slam the better the scene will thicken and that toddler will soon turn into a petulant teenager, ready to take on the world. ”
The Slam has been challenging the conventional norms of spoken word since its first run in 2007. The so-called “drooling toddler” rises above the ‘spoken’ aspect of spoken word, allowing contestants to perform a screamed/beat-boxed/howled/mumbled/sung’ word poem and improvise with any form of speech.
Although, the Victorian Slam draws the line at improvising off stage with other contestants in hostile ways. According to the rulebook, poets must “ refuse to allow the competitive challenge of the game to lead me to violence, interference, direct or indirect threats.”
While state finalists might be declawed before they hit the mike so that the Slam organisers can protect themselves from possible lawsuits, they certainly won’t hold back in any other way.
Slam poetry attracts all kinds of colourful folks who wholeheartedly express their genius eccentricity. Baker remembers bush poet Eddie Dalton’s bizarre poem about Lara Bingle because “it manages to rhyme Brendan Fevola with viola.”
“The night is going to be one of the best nights of poetry, hip-hop and slam you will ever see,” says Baker. “Oh, and I hear the host is really hot, too.”
The ‘Australian Poetry Slam: Victorian final’ will kick off at the State Library Victoria on Friday November 19 at 7.00pm Tickets are $10-$15.
