Swindon Festival Literature
5th Youth Poetry Slam

This year’s Youth Poetry Slam was just tremendous! The quality of writing and performing from the ten secondary schools was second to none, as the close marks stand in testement! The Grand Slam, held at the Arts Centre during the festival fortnight, was jam packed and the buzz was tremendous. Commonweal won 1st and 2nd place!

This is the fifth year I have project managed this event which has now become embedded into the Yr 8 curriculum. Josie Williams, Community Arts Development Officer.

India Collins-Davies, Year 10
Gives Us The Low Down!

Commonweal have been closely involved in the competition for the last five years and have had an excellent record, coming first every year except one. This year’s two teams - the Word Birds (Megan Bryan, Libby Griffiths, Amber Kamugisha and Hollie Roberts pictured above) and the Performers (Sian Francis-Cox, Megan Harvey, Casey Hindon and Tallulah Lyons) – had a lot to live up to!

Ten schools from across Swindon took part in the slam, with poems covering everything from the humourous to more serious issues such as autism and friendship break –ups. Each team was marked out of 100 on three aspects of their final performance: the quality of the writing, the quality of the performance, and the warmth of the audience’s response, by various judges.

Despite the initial and inevitable stage fright, both teams were placed first in their first round heats with their poems “We All Fall Down” and “Dear Diary”. This automatically qualified them for the final, where six teams are given the chance to perform their second poem. In between last minute rehearsals in front of the Arts Centre, one student said: ‘This has been so much fun! I’ve never performed in front of an audience this big. I’d love to do something like this again.’ The various members of staff who had come along to support the teams were also in agreement that, ‘even if they don’t win, we’ll still be really proud of them.’

During the final it was remarked that the scores being given were higher than those of any previous slam, and it was clear that every one of the six teams had put a huge amount of effort into their performances. However, despite the high standard of the other contenders, the two Commonweal teams with the poems “Whatalotaholics” and “Welcome to the Zoo” came out on top, with the Performers in 2nd place and the Word Birds winning the competition. Both teams received prizes of books, and the Word Birds were presented with the Youth Slam trophy by Josie Williams, slam project manager, and Matt Holland, organiser of Swindon Literature Festival.

“It’s so nice to work with such enthusiastic students,” commented English teacher Mrs Ogden who was involved in training the teams. “We put a lot of time and effort into the Poetry Slam every year and it’s obviously paying off. This year the entries were of a particularly high standard in every way, we certainly had a lot more competition for the top spot.”

“Yes,” agreed English teacher Mrs Weir, who came to support the students, “but they were both fantastic and very deserving of their places. We’re all very proud of them!”

Many thanks to all students and staff who gave up their own time to take part in this exciting project.

This years competing schools:

Highworth Warneford
Dorcan Technology College
Kingsdown School
Isambard Community School
Greendown
Nova Hreod
St Joseph's RC
Commonweal
Swindon Academy
Churchfields