Australian Poetry Slam is an annual poetry slam competition run within Australia. Contestants of all ages, experiences and talents perform live and are judged by the audience to determine the best both locally and nationally through a succession of heats and finals. It is run in the style of an "open slam": anyone is allowed to sign up until twenty slots are filled. It is typically hosted by the previous year's Australian Poetry Slam Champion or another known poet.
History
Australian Poetry Slam began in 2005, progressing from individual areas to state and eventually to the national competition it is today. This was largely made possible by Word Travels partnership with government libraries from 2005 until 2009, although the collaboration continues to exist, simply on a lesser scale. It developed into a national competition in 2008, when the first Champion was crowned and has been held every year since. National poetry slams, with a similar format also occur in America, Canada, New Zealand and an increasing quantity of African nations.
Word Travels
Miles Merrill brought poetry slams from Chicago to Australia both through his own artistic endeavours and by founding Word Travels, which he remains the creative director of. In 2010 Word Travels was approved as an incorporation and not-for-profit arts association. This organisation created and continues to run the Australian Poetry Slam both through government funding and grants, as well as donations from the public.
Staff
The current staff at Word Travels are in charge of coordinating and organising both Story-Fest and the Australian Poetry Slam. These staff are predominantly a large cohort of volunteers who do everything from maintaining budgets to timing events and directing visiting poets and workshop participants.
Story-Fest
Word Travels has additionally created an annual literary festival known as Story-Fest which coincides with the National Poetry Slam Final and Sydney and New South Wales Finals. It occurs over a succession of three days throughout various Sydney locations and typically includes numerous workshops, forums and performances by local and international artists. Artists that have been involved in Story-Fest include Ian Keteku, Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa, Kaie Kellough and Deborah Emmanuel.
Rules
The Australian Poetry Slam has a fairly compact set of rules aimed at controlling participation, organising logistics and increasing fairness. The current rules are listed below
No staff or volunteers at the venue of heats, of the Australian Poetry Slam or Word Travels may compete.
No contestant may compete in a state, territory or region that they do not reside in.
Contestants may enter numerous heats, as long as they are all within their state of residence.
There will be no more than 20 contestants per heat. When more than 20 poets enter venues shall select a method for determining who has the opportunity to compete. Typically it is based upon the order in which poets signed up to perform, with the first 20 poets to sign up competing, or with the first 15 who sign up competing, and all other potential competitors having their names placed in a hat, with 5 names pulled out to confirm the remaining five participants.
Signing up to perform occurs on the night of the heat, at the venue the heat is to take place.
The organiser/host of the heat shall randomly select five members of the audience to act as judges throughout the event. The judges shall score on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest. These scores shall also be to 1 decimal place. Of these five scores, the highest and lowest shall be ignored with the middle three scores combined to determine the poets’ final score for the evening.
Competitors shall perform in a random order, as determined by a draw conducted by an organiser/host..
Competitors may not use any props, instruments or costumes. Only the poet’s body, voice, provided microphone and transcript the poem for the performers personal use.
Competitors may only perform poems constructed within the last year that are their own, original work. However these poems may be on any topic, concept or idea whatsoever so long as they are not intended to offend anyone. The principle idea of this is to allow free creative expression without marginalising any other individuals or collectives. Common focus points are typically contemporary social justice issues. These include; personal growth and development, mental health, description of emotions or experiences, race, feminism, sexual and gendered identity and relationships.
There is a 2 minute time limit, with 1 point deducted from the final score for going beyond the 2 minutes, and another 1 point deducted from the final score for every 30 seconds above that meaning that at 2 minutes and 1 second you will be deducted a point, and at 2 minutes and 31 seconds you will be deducted an additional point, and so it continues. The two minutes commences from the moment the timekeeper feels your performance has begun, this may include introductions and body movements prior to the commencement of the poem.
Unless the event is marked as designated for young people to compete the Australian Poetry Slam welcomes people of all ages to enter. However, those under the age of 18 ought to consider the location and the possibility that they may need to be escorted by an adult.
The poets that progress to the next heat, such as regional heats, state or territory finals or the national final will be the two performers with the highest scores from their respective events.
Format
The competition begins with 50 localised heats, in categories ranging from metropolitan to regional to country such as the Sydney CBD heat and the Bathurst heat. The two poets with the highest scores from each heat then sometimes progress onto regional heats such as the Western Sydney Poetry Slam Final and Sydney Poetry Slam Final once again with the top two poets progressing. In other circumstances such as Canberra and Tasmania participants directly progress into state and territory finals, with the two highest scoring poets participating in the National Final. Many of these heats are run specifically for the Australian Poetry Slam, however several others are regularly running events, often monthly that simply designate that event as a round to qualify for the Australian Poetry Slam, such as the Granville Poetry Slam and Wollongong Poetry Slam in New South Wales. Another convention of the poetry slam format is that whilst poets are clapped after their performance and scores, they are additionally 'clicked' at during their performance. The audience clicks throughout the performance to encourage the poet as well as provide direct feedback regarding which lines, phrases or gestures connected with them the best, without being loud enough to ruin or distract from the performance.
Prizes
The current prize for first position is the opportunity to perform at the Byron Writers Festival, Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, Singapore Writers Festival and Hong Kong International Literary Festival. All of the expenses for this tour are paid by Word Travels and their partners. The Australian Poetry Slam Champion shall also receive a two week writing retreat in New South Wales Bundanon Trust. However these prizes do change regularly as a result of shifting partnerships and availabilities such as the recently developed partnership between the Australian and Canadian Poetry Slam coordinators. Additionally due to age and residency requirements the above prizes only apply to those over 18 years of age and residing in Australia. To compensate for these conditions if the winner of the Australian Poetry Slam is under 18 year age they shall be eligible to receive a prize dedicated to youth or if the Champion is not an Australian resident they will be awarded a cash prize.
Previous champions
2018 Australian Poetry Slam Champion - Melanie Mununggurr-Williams, a poet from the Northern Territory
2017 Australian Poetry Slam Champion - Solli Raphael, a young poet from Coffs Harbour
2017 Australian Poetry Slam Adult Champion - Jesse Oliver, a poet from Perth
2016 Australian Poetry Slam Champion - Arielle Cottingham, although residing in Melbourne during that year she spends most of her time in Texas, America
2015 Australian Poetry Slam Champion - Phillip Wilcox, a poet from Nowra
2014 Australian Poetry Slam Champion - Zohab Zee Khan, a poet from rural NSW with Pakistani heritage
2013 Australian Poetry Slam Chamion - Jesse John Brand, a poet from Newcastle
2011 Australian Poetry Slam Champion - Luka Lesson
2010 Australian Poetry Slam Champion - Kelly-Lee Hickey
2009 Australian Poetry Slam Champion - Sarah Taylor
2008 Australian Poetry Slam Champion - Omar Musa, a highly successful poet from Queanbeyan
The Rumble youth slam
The Rumble is a youth poetry slam held annually by Word Travels as a part of Sydney Writer’s Festival and alongside the Australian Poetry Slam. It is the largest youth poetry slam in Sydney, with various young artists between the age of 12 and 18 regularly competing. It consists of a series of heats in which young poets are encouraged to practice as well as workshops allowing them to develop their skills. The Rumble is then held to determine the best young Sydney poet, with the winner gaining the opportunity to perform at the National Australian Poetry Slam Final. It is typically held at Parramatta Riverside Theatre and aims to provide youth with a space to utilise their voices in a meaningful way. The 2018 Rumble champion was Helen Latukefu. The 2017 Rumble champion was Georgia Chapman. The 2016 Rumble champion was Emily Crocker. The rules for The Rumble are similar to those of the Australian Poetry Slam.
Multilingual Poetry Slam
The Multilingual Poetry Slam is created and run annually by Word Travels as part of the IN OTHER WORDS festival, with the first event held in 2013. It is a poetry slam held in Sydney that encourages poets to perform in their native language, whatever that may be as all languages are accepted. Through this practice Word Travels aims to celebrate the diversity of language and culture. The 2018 Multilingual Champion was Joseph Schwarzkopf. In 2017 Hasitha Adhikariarachchi was the Mulitlingual Poetry Slam Champion. The 2016 Multilingual Champion was Bhupen Thakkar.
