Hi

 

Sadly, Apples & Snakes, the UK poetry organisation which once pioneered equality and diversity in poetry, has rolled out across the country a series of youth (13 to 16 year olds) poetry slam competitions. My local is at The Garage, Norwich.

 

I attended the first British slam at Chats Palace Hackney way back in 1993 and absolutely hated it but at least the contestants were fully consenting adults. Yes, children take part in written poetry competitions (which I personally dislike) but it’s not quite the same as being humiliated on stage as a loser. Has it come to this: Apples & Snakes are at the forefront of the Michael Gove view of Culture? I think they are. Poetry Slams for kids is a widely advertised competition. Yet, poetry slams for adults have largely bitten the dust. At 12 to 16 years of age, adults can shape the content of young people’s poetry, while loving the "’newness” of the form, the delivery. That is, the competition is about “content” becoming “form.” Indeed, I argue, all education is now to this end: English as Literacy, Plays as Theatre Study, Poetry as Bones.

 

The Garage in Norwich teaches theatre and performance skills. There is no playtext, social context, no text. While there is no youth service in Norfolk and Norwich anymore, the Garage enjoys substantial public funding – for providing performing skills to young people without any context whatsoever. Juggling, tap, dance, voice projection, etc. Perhaps all young people in Norwich will overnight find themselves middle class and juggle for a living – or win an Apple & Snakes kids’s poetry slam – where kid knocks out kid. Loser! Loser!

 

Surely, poetry is IT because it is a shared human experience, not a game of Snakes & Ladders. If you know anyone in Apple & Snakes make them ashamed of standing with the ethos of failing children who write and read poetry out loud.

 

All best wishes, Rupert