Shot From The Lip

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Youth Slam is Done!? Long Live Youth Poetry!

LOCATION: THE BARBICAN, SILK ST EC1 DATE: 19.11.2016  TIME: 12:00:00 PM

Creative engagement with poetry in education is vital.  It has been proven to be a meaningful and potentially life-changing art for young people particularly beyond educational settings. Youth SLAM programmes and performance poetry have been at the forefront of popularising poetry and there’s a broad range of transformative work being done across the country.

But is SLAM still the vital, galvanising force for engagement with poetry that it was once considered to be?

How should youth poetry producers and educators look to the future?

State of the Nation: A gathering to answer these questions and many more; an opportunity to hear first hand from some of the best practitioners creating paths of progression and building communities of young poets, nationally.  

Watch this space for more information. 

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Points of Poetry

Shot from the Lip 2015

Listening to poets from five different cities, who also happen to be teenagers, the power of certain lines kept hitting me. These lines didn’t just draw recognition, a cackle or the weight of a pain—it was as if the words came physically out in the air to pierce through the pretences, illusions and structures that we live in.

 ‘The points are not the point, the point is the poetry’ is an old slam maxim, and of course it’s been said enough to become a real cliché. I didn’t hear it said this weekend, but I did come away thinking about the bigger picture of its meaning. 

This is the sixth youth poetry slam I’ve been involved in coordinating, and the fourth that’s brought together teams from across the country. The projects I work on place a lot of emphasis on celebration and collaboration, and deviate from the traditional slam model. We never hold up scores after poems, we don’t even announce any scores or ranking order and we don’t pick judges from the audience—we invite a panel with diverse expertise in literature and performance. The slam itself is always one event in a weekend of events and workshops, in which young people and mentors from across all teams work with and get to know each other.

 Still, when it comes to the slam, there are judges, a scoring rubric, time penalties and a highest scoring team. As a producer, I’m usually the one who escorts the judges out of the theatre and remains present during their decision-making. It’s a serious moment—teams have invested all of themselves in the crafting of their pieces and worked intensely to prepare. The judges honour that work and their job is desperately hard—to use numbers to differentiate between poems that have invariably moved them and often blown them away. And of course the teams care who wins the awards, although it doesn’t stop them cheering on the other teams when they’re hit by the power of a line or performance technique.

 And here’s why I’m going on about this. Because like I said, there are these moments—many moments over the weekend, in and outside of the slam event itself—in which the poetry breaks through not only the slam points system but the whole greater world-points-system of competition/commercialism/inequality. It exposes, it offers alternatives and it reminds us why we live.

 Poetry reminds us why we live because it speaks the truth—every poem that moved me this weekend in some way confirmed this. There was a poem about the state of confusion that exists for students within the school-exam-UCAS-life-decision system. There was a poem about being an introvert. There was a particularly brave poem about FGM that was also beautiful in how it honoured women and the body.

 As humans we rely on systems. The useful element of competition is that it gives us something to strive towards—it can make us better. But we all know that if we start to focus on the competition itself—on success for the sake of success—we’ve lost sight of why we were bothering in the first place.

 Where the poetry cuts through its own points system to the truth, slam is basically a metaphor for poetry itself and how it functions in the world.

Written by Miriam Nash, Poet, performer, youth arts producer, author of Small Change from flipped eye publishing  

https://twitter.com/miriamnash

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Team Leeds won shotfromthelip congratulations, they were well deserving winners.

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Team London won Most striking line shotfromthelip. Their words were truly felt.

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Team Manchester @YoungIDmcr won most striking performance I hope this pictures can invoke the same feeling which granted them that title. 

Photo credit: @amaalsaid

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Home, to a man

A home without breasts is just a house

 Nooks and crannies need to be cleared,

mother taught me

never be envious of others houses

they only wish to break down yours,

men wish to break it down.

 I’m the lucky one,

I know that much

but I can feel the paint peeling

from the bathroom walls.

I don’t know what I’ll do

when it finally falls.

 Nooks and crannies need to be cleared,

Mama told me to never give away

my spare keys

that it is sacred between God and I,

but she makes a pair for any

wealthy man arranging a visit.

 Mama refuses to buy sanitary towels

in the household shopping

She asks what will you do

if your brothers see them,

if they see that your house is dirty?

She says Hishod naya,

Have shame, girl.

 Nooks and crannies need to be cleared,

I once turned off all the lights

I swear I felt my soul leave the house,

I said Good for you girl!

You deserve to be happy.

 Nooks and crannies must be cleared.

When a man comes to view your house

it must be clean.

Don’t just sweep

the dirt under the carpet.

Trim

that rug.

Make sure all your corridors

are clear of impurities

 Make sure your living room is presentable,

it is the bosom of your home.

Stay in the kitchen or the bedroom,

mama tells me,

so he can watch you in your

natural habitat.

 Mama taught me I must

speak my mind, though

every man is allowed to test

out my home before he buys it.

So if he wants to inspect,

let him beg to witness all your rooms

and if he breaks down your walls,

give in, maybe.

Mama taught me to be wary

of handing him all my glory at once.

He must also do some polishing of edges.

 Nooks and crannies must be cleared.

Perhaps, by a

man.

  By @amxnawrites

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The judges and Zena Edwards on stage @jumokefashola @_AislingF @InuaEllams  @ZenaEdwards @shotfromthelip

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Teams from Nottingham and London on blowing the stage away, I can confirm we were able to put back together

Photo credit: https://twitter.com/amaalsaid

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Practice makes perfect.

Photo credit:

 https://twitter.com/amaalsaid, http://amaalsdrifting.tumblr.com/, https://instagram.com/amaalsaid/

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Beautiful portraits of some members of the London team.

Photo credit Amaal Said

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acesMore photos from the workshop. Look out those faces, you can’t convince me they aren’t having fun. In many ways it would be wrong of you to do so.

photo credit Amaal Said

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Everyone getting warmed up, ironically the rooms were overheated. I suppose there are worst things in the world then being kept warm I.E Shark attack. The groups from the across the UK were mixed together, giving the chance for them to interact with new people.

Photo credit Amaal Said

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Group photo

Photo credit Amaal Said

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Groups getting ready for the performance from all over the U.K 

photo credit Amaal Said

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https://twitter.com/writesRachel https://twitter.com/jsamlarose

Photo credit Amaal Said

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No. Your ears are right. There is no sound. The art of fighting without fighting. Or: the act of performing poetry without poetry. Omar Bynon, chief exponent.

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