Having never been to any kind of performance poetry event before, I was excited to be assisting at The Next

Generation Poetry Slam during the Bristol Spring Poetry Festival. It was towards the end of my experience with

Poetry Can and I was looking forward to delving into the practical side of poetry- and attending my first poetry slam!

From my arrival at the Arnolfini to the end of the night I was on my feet, learning about event planning, talking to

lots of interesting people and seeing for myself what goes into putting on a good event. The young poets’ talent

and enthusiasm was remarkable and I found myself both very moved and amused by their pieces- deeply impressed

by their insightful poems on a wide range of subjects focusing in turn on culture, relationships, politics and nature.

It was very inspiring to see people from my own generation up on stage, really engaged with a wide range of issues

and delivering their poems with such passion and precision.

Arriving well before the event I had the chance to meet all the performers and the host and help set up the stage.

Tim Gibbard who hosted the event had boundless energy that carried the slam through; it was great to have the

opportunity to work with him and find out more about performance poetry. To be involved in the pre-performance and

its nervy atmosphere was great and I went around finding water jugs and co-ordinating introduction notes from the

poets amongst other things to make sure we were ready for the slam to start on time. When the audience started

filtering in everything started happening so quickly.

The audience created a great atmosphere and my task of going amongst them with names in a hat to decide the running

order of the poets allowed me to interact directly with the audience. I also helped tally the judges’ scores and sat at their

table right in the thick of things on stage; being observed by the audience was a new and interesting experience.

As well as the talented Bristol poets who battled on through two extremely tough rounds, guest poet and judge Hollie

McNish did a few readings from her recent book of poems. She expressed herself with so much clarity, conviction and

energy and a great sense of triumph pervaded her writing. Along with the other judges she had a tough time scoring the

poets but after two timed rounds a winner was announced.

The winner of the Next Generation Slam was Vanessa Kisuule, with close second Harry Baker coming in just after.

Vanessa’s poems about her grandmother and her relationship with an old boyfriend were heartfelt and cleverly put

together and they conveyed strong emotion that Vanessa delivered very powerfully. Harry’s tongue-twister about

‘paper people’ resonated with its satirical tone.

It was the huge variety in performance styles and poems that made the slam so successful and captivating; all the

poets did a stellar job. The whole evening did not feel like other ‘work’ I have done in the past and definitely made

me want to go out and find more performance poetry. The night was so full of energy and it was great to be involved

on a practical level in my first ever (but not last) poetry slam.

Kayleigh Töyrä