It’s not often competition judges are decided by whoever catches a chocolate but the Australian Poetry Slam isn’t your regular competition.
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The regional slam heat was held at Nowra Library on Saturday, September 2.
Twelve poets turned out to try their luck, with Milton resident Craig Green crowned the winner by five randomly chosen audience judges.
Shoalhaven Heads resident Libby Keller and 13-year-old Belle Jeffrey took out equal second in the recent competition.
Ms Keller recently started writing poetry after it appeared as a component in her creative writing degree.
“I didn’t think I could write poetry. In school if you didn’t have your syntax you were shut down fairly quickly, but now it’s different and it’s a lot of fun,” Ms Keller said.
Her poem ‘Shadows’ was based on her own experiences of her adult children leaving home.
Ms Keller congratulated Belle on her poem, based around body image, and wished her luck at the state final.
“Her poem was fantastic and her and Craig will be a great representation for Nowra and the Shoalhaven,” she said.
“It’s wonderful to have a wide spectrum of the population representing us and I think it’s a very strong team to send on.”
Performing writers are given a microphone, a live audience, and just two minutes to capture the crowd.
After each performance, judges held up score cards using a 1-10 scale, with 10 being the highest.
Of the five scores for each poet, only the middle three scores are counted. The judges’ decisions are final.
Mr Green described his poem ‘Eighty-nine Ways to Prolong Agony’ as a “humorous list of things that happen in life that make you think ‘is that the ways things are?”
“It’s satirical look at the things that you sometimes overlook that need to be looked at differently,” Mr Green said.
While it was the first time Mr Green has entered the competition, he’s been writing and participating in performance poetry for years.
As a young child it proved to be a means to convey his emotions.
“It was a way for me to put thoughts down on the page and convey things to others that sometimes you just can’t say,” Mr Green said.
One of Mr Green’s poems, ‘A Land Ahead of Time’ is set to hit the pages of a children’s book next year.
The book will feature a parallel world where things taken for granted in this world are looked at differently in another.
Mr Green will now go on to the State Library of NSW on October 14 to compete in the state competition. The national competition will be held the following day at the Sydney Opera House.
Shadows
by Libby Keller
They’re gone now.
The shadows on walls,
just empty white spaces
since they
grew up tall.
***
Echoes of laughter,
squeals in the rain.
High little voices
could
pierce through my brain.
***
They’re gone now,
to big city lights.
To jobs and apartments
on buses
and bikes.
***
No scraps, spats
or squabbles late into the night.
No hugging and sobbing
and making
things right.
***
They’re gone now.
And I miss all the things,
that I took for granted
like riding
on swings,
***
After school soccer
and veggie on toast.
Can you read to us Mum?
I miss that
the most.
***
They’re gone now.
We stand all alone,
faint in their mirror
with nobody
home.
***
Loves product and package
have left their first nest.
They’re forging their path,
Now we’re shadows at best.
***
So don’t take this lightly
it will happen to you.
Little birds fly
as you too once flew. ©
