Kirikiriroa Hamilton Poetry Slam
Motif Poetry Slam returned to Hamilton in October bringing fresh, vibrant and energetic poetry that isn’t learnt at school. The poems explode from the mic to the room, ensuring the audience feels the emotion of the performer.
Held at the Hamilton Central Library, the 2023 Kirikiriroa Hamilton Poetry Slam was a safe, fun and inclusive event. Whether the readers performed sonnets, rap, activism or comedy, all styles were welcome on the stage.
There were three rounds of audience-judged, original work from established and emerging local performers. The poets battled it out, and by the end of the night they crowned Tineke Buser as the new Hamilton Slam Champion. Buser will go on to represent Kirikiriroa at the NZ National NZ Poetry Slam.
One of the participants during the event was Ashlee Davis, from Missouri, United States. She is the Producer and Editor of the first season of television series ‘Ozark’ and Assistant to Executive Producer of L. Michel on the tv series, ‘Servant’.
“It is my first time joining the poetry slam and poetry is something I don’t normally do but it helps me to let out my emotions. I will join another poetry slam because I want to face my fear of being emotionally vulnerable to other people. It is a great practice for it to talk to people.”
Ashlee has been in Aotearoa for five months now for a holiday and says she will join more poetry slams to conquer her fears about being able to express her emotions to other people.
The term “poetry slam” was coined by Chicago native Marc Smith to describe the cabaret-style poetry show he began staging at the Green Mill Lounge in July 1986. Designed to encourage active audience participation that allows them to judge the participants. A typical slam has an open mic set for newcomers, a segment devoted to guest performances ranging from stand-up poetry to multimedia presentations, and a ‘slam competition’.
Judged by randomly selected audience members, “slam competitions” loosely follow Olympic-style scoring. Poets perform for a maximum of three minutes, either solo or as part of an ensemble, and are rated between 0 and 10 for their performance skills and the quality of the text. Find out more about poetry slam here http://www.newzealandpoetryslam.com/
