The heat was on to find the winner of the third Swindon Festival of Literature Youth Poetry Slam on Saturday May 12 th at Devizes Road Arts Centre. Kingsdown School won first prize and Commonweal and Greendown Schools were joint second.

“Commonweal have won for the last two years so it was only fair that another school tipped us off our pedestal. The quality of performance this year was of a high standard and all bar one team performed without scripts.” said Josie Williams, Community Arts Development Officer and SFL Youth Slam Project Manager.

Commented Kingsdown student Ryan Walklett, age 13, who was in the winning team and incidentally very talented “We had good poems and we practiced a lot. Our teacher Mr Fisher helped a bit and made us feel more confident.”

In the fortnight prior 120 students from Swindon’s secondary schools took part in poetry workshops in preparation for the Grand Slam on the Saturday morning .

Professional poets, Marcus Moore and Sara – Jane Arbury, came into schools to put the youngsters through their paces to learn the art of performance poetry.

Commented Marcus “We’ve been very impressed by the effort the students have made so far. The standard goes up every year and is a credit to Swindon schools who have embraced this creative opportunity with gusto.”

“This exciting project is part of our community objectives and forges links with main stream secondary schools . It increases confidence and inter-personal skills and gives young people the chance to work with professionals. At the start of the workshops the students are in their own little cliques but within five minutes Marcus and Sara – Jane have them all interacting with one another via warm up games.” Josie added

The event is supported by, Swindon LA, Artsmad, Artsword and the prestigious Poetry Society based in London. The Grand Final on Saturday May 12 th was a fab event, the air was electric as teams compete to get through to the final round.”

Winning team from Kingsdown is Jar of Animals, joint second Commonweal’s Pirate and Best of Greendown.

Big thank you to all the secondary school English Departments for putting in heaps of effort to ensure yet another successful event.

"Auditions for this year’s Yr 8 Poetry Slam at Commonweal took place at lunchtime on 25 th April. 24 students arrived, all eager to take part.

"In groups, competitors were asked to write and perform a poem on the theme of animals. In just 20 minutes each group had to present their poem in front of a panel of judges from the English Department.

"All panelists agreed that the standard was exceptionally high. The poems were very powerful; some moving, some funny; and performances were very dramatic given the short practice time the teams had had.

"It will be a tough decision for judges but 16 students will go forward to the next round of the competition on 1st May when they will compete against two other Swindon schools. The final is being held at the Swindon Arts Centre on Saturday, 12 th May. Commonweal has high hopes of a third time victory and retaining the cup we’ve held since the competition began." Mrs Wier, English Depart.

Saturday 12th May 2007

Swindon's 3rd Inter-School Youth Poetry Slam! 11am / ticket £5.00 for adults - under 16's free available from Arts Centre Box Office tel: 01793 614837

Participating schools:
The Commonweal School
Dorcan Technology Collage Greendown Community School Highworth Warneford School
Ridgeway School
Kingsdown School
St. Joseph's RC Comprehensive
Churchfields School.