As part of the Action Media intiative, we are working with the young people to gain Arts Awards. Part of the Arts Award qualification requires being an audience member at an arts event. This is the first review [hopefully of many] of events that members of Action Media have attended.
Sunday 7 November, a few members of the Action Media crew went along to the DReading Slam poetry event at The Rising Sun arts centre.
Having enjoyed the Starting Point ‘Insight into Life as A Poet’ workshops, from earlier in the summer, we headed up the road for an evening of competitive poetry reading.
It was a fun and relaxed atmosphere, although we were all too nervous to compete on our first visit, and just happy to watch and take it all in.
We were chosen to be judges! And were given the scoreboard with which to offer up our marks after each poet’s performance.
It was nice to see a range of ages competing, and the air of respect that was present. It was great to hear people putting humour into their work, and a range of performance and poetry styles.
They mixed it up during the break with a quick limerick competition and an open slot for anyone to ‘read’ any other poems they wanted – including a young lady who had been inspired and had just written a poem during the evening. After the break, the three finalists performed their third poem each and we gave our highest mark to the lady who became the overall winner.
An interesting experiece, it was encouraging to see and meet local poets and I’m sure we’ll be going back – hopefully to perform in the not too distant future.
For more on the DReading Slam, see here
A review from J
I liked the atmosphere and the people taking part in the poetry slam, they were all very nice and welcoming and encouraging. I like how relaxed it was aswell, everyone just chilling out and reading poems. There were more people than I expected and they all had different poems, some were funny, some were inspiring and it was all very relaxing, i was in a group of people who was selected to be judges for the contestants who were competeting against eachother but there was also a part of the poetry slam where anyone could come up and read a poem and I was inspired by the other poems so I wrote a poem and when it was read out, this lady in the crowd asked for it to be read again which made me feel really good then she gave me a fist bump afterwards, I would definitely recommend this to other people cause it was very fun and ill definitely be going to the next poetry slam at the rising sun.
A review from A
I enjoyed this event and would recommend this to other people interested in poetry because it was an interesting experience and you can listen to and read many poems in a friendly environment. I would also recommend it to those who aren’t as interested in poems so they can experience what it is like and possibly develop their own interest in poetry. One girl there was so inspired hearing the poems she decided to write her first poem and read it in front of everyone. It was nice to see that there are a wide variety of poets and they have a friendly community in my area. It was very poggers gamer poet moment.
A review from C
This event was recommended to me by my English tutor, and since I had already taken an interest in poetry [through the Starting Point ‘Insight into…’ workshops in the summer] I thought ‘Why not?’ There were so many people of all ages and backgrounds. It felt an accepting atmosphere. Every poem was different – which was cool. The poems were all unique. Some were funny. Some were dark. One guy had a poem about his garden, that was clever. There was no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, it was just poetry. I feel like people don’t actually know what poetry is. I think some people think poetry is boring, but it’s not like that at all! It’s different people expressing different things about themselves/interests. It made me realise you can write a poem about anything. It was good to see there were other people in my area who like/write poems. I would definitely recommend it and would love to go again!
