Hi Randolph and all

 

Absence explained elsewhere!

 

My life has been centred on/with/around young people in that I have taught in Further Education for 25 years and I am a trained youth worker with lots of experience. I’ve also worked in community arts in the East Midlands and East Anglia (1985-2011) and have worked with many young people – poetry, theatre, visual arts and have even organised ‘rock schools’ with/for them. Ages me that. 

 

I don’t buy ‘competition’ at all. The 11-plus was a competition. The Market is a competition. In my experience, whether 25 years ago or yesterday, young people hate competing against each other but it seems it’s what’s expected of them. At Eton, it’s a way of life from near birth to death.

I have asked young people about Poetry Slams and always the Big Thumb Down – particularly among working class teenagers. This may seem ironic as I’m sure Apples & Snakes are promoting the Diversity and Equal Opportunity aspects of Slam. But, given it’s a competition, an opportunity is never equality!

 

Yes, kids deal with failure. Is that any way forward? And guess who will be the failure?

 

Best wishes, Rupert

An interesting discussion.

Debs:

I think you raise a key issue with your question "Did you talk to any of the young people about their experience?" 

Rupert: I think this is where your concerns about kids being humiliated or thought of as losers or indeed their de facto inability to give adult consent may be less than perfectly founded. I've observed kids getting involved in all sorts of competitions over the years. They get over losing very quickly in my experience. If anything, winning seems to do more harm. And the harm amounts to a slight swelling of the head. Again fairly temporary.

Rhys: "the wrong idea about poetry"??? I appreciate your own immediate second take on this, but come on :)
I haven't been to many slams. Some I disliked. Some I thought were exhilarating. I agree with you that it'd be a poor reading that had no performative element, at least at first glance. I remember one reading where the poet sat at a table, a pile of sheets in front of him, and he read the lot without even looking up once. It was mesmerising.

It's amazing what will work. And if poetry stops being amazing, that's only temporary too.

best

Randolph




On 28/05/2012 19:05, Deborah Stevenson wrote:

[log in to unmask] type="cite">Hey All, 

 

As the East Midlands Shake the Dust coordinator and someone close to the heart of this slam program I should probably say something. But I will keep it brief mainly because I am inexperienced with these kinds of email discussions and read too slowly to get fully into them.

 

You would be surprised at how aware Apples and Snakes and the directors of the project are about the points you raise. They do not see Slam as a long term route in to poetry. They see it as a doorway - once in the child should be quickly ferried out into the diverse and wonderful world of performance and page poetry. They are aware of the pitfalls of slam, many of which you have mentioned and I think the focus is on legacy and awareness.

 

Furthermore I think this slam system is better at avoiding certain pitfalls in comparison to American slam e.g. in the USA randomly chosen judges hold up score cards to rate the poets whereas in the UK a panel of experienced poets give each team feedback and a number of prizes are given at the end with no scores being shown.

 

As a 16 year old slam reached me, where conventional poetry wouldn't off. I think it is more accessible and though I think it is also where you see the worst poetry and there are a lot of bad things about slam it can draw young people into writing that might not otherwise find it.

 

After that first slam when I was 16 I never attended or ran another until now so I am approaching it with caution. But I think it is unfair to lay into what is a project with good intentions for young people. Did you talk to any of the young people about their experience?

Debs

 

On 28 May 2012 17:43, Rhys Trimble <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Generally I agree that slams are awful - and give kids the wrong idea about poetry ( though what doesn't?). I have been to some slams in Europe that were more diverse with (extremely) 'serious' 'literary' poets as some of it's contestants.  Slams (perhaps) arose because of an anti-elitist sentiment that of wanting some theatricality to be brought to the thing - which isn't altogether a bad, many poetry readings are a little over-reverential and dry and a little of the tools slammers use applied to the right content and with integrity is what is needed from performances sometimes I think. Those who tread the middle ground and have both content, and more 'showy' performance - maybe Anthony Joseph, (who else? LKJ?) someone who can 'do both.' Performance 'skillsets' and thoughtful poetry not  should not be mutually exclusive I don't think.  Wither the Troubadours and Oral Tradition??

 

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