As this year’s Belfast Book Festival drew to a close, we attended the festival’s annual poetry slam at the Crescent Arts Centre. The poetry slam is an event that I’ve wanted to go to for a while, but never managed to actually make it to, so this year it was top priority.
The premise is simple: register on the night, read your own original work and don’t stay on stage longer than 3 minutes. Over 20 brave poets of all ages, experience and talent put their names in the proverbial hat (not knowing when they would be called up), waxing lyrical about all manner of topics from beaches to moths to mouldy bread.
Whether it was first timers or old hands, the standard was amazing – the sheer confidence and insight that the poets exuded was genuinely astounding. My personal favourites included a humorous take on the shipping forecast (called the Slipping Forecast) by Ross Thompson and a poem about the first moth on the moon by William Donnelly.
With such an abundance of talent on show at the Crescent Arts Centre, we’re assured it was a tight contest, but after three gruelling rounds, the winner of the 2015 Poetry Slam was announced to be last year’s reigning champion David Braziel with his eclectic poems covering apologising, words and hip hop.
A great night was had by all, and even if you don’t think poetry is ‘your thing’ I urge you to check out a slam at your earliest convenience.
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