I have been craving new poetry. So when I saw that there’s an organization called @PoetryAfrica hosting a SLAM Festival in Durban, I had to go see it with my own eyes.
I walked into a theatre set at Durban High School and it was packed. You could tell the audience loves poetry. They knew all the performers, had preferences and were very interactive.
It was my first time at a SLAM Poetry event, believe it or not. So the vibes were different. The poets have to recite a poem for each round they are chosen into and it must be within a preset time. I didn’t check how long that is, but you can disqualify yourself by going over time so you must make your point and go.
The fact you have to have poetry ready for anything, like your mind must be full of new and fresh material for all the rounds in the competition. That is a lot of preparation and pressure. There’s also the fact that all this happens in front of a live crowd and there is no room to make a mistake . I so respect the poets for putting in all that work. Personally I would never SLAM mina. It’s hard to get 1 poem out of me.
The beauty in this program is that the winner gets to go to the Global SLAM and represents us. What a cool program. I like the concept and it’s beautiful to see young people, grow the language of poetry and beauty of playing with words.
To quote the UN “Africa has the youngest population in the world with more than 400 million young people aged between the ages of 15 to 35 years” . What will they do with the energy of their youth ? Poetry is one place they can come and learn how to SLAM/Write/Publish/Perform/Market. I’m so glad there’s people focused on building the infrastructure that can improve the poetry community. I’m glad there is an investment in creating conscious communities for young people. Places to gather and spit !
The Grand Finale had a Top 5. They were cut down to 3 , and then 2 and the star was chosen. My top two were definitely Olive and Masai.
Masai is a performer of note. I would never want to perform after him. Don’t do it, you won’t survive. He delivers each poem with excellence, you feel the words as he says them and he uses his whole body to tell you a story. Crazy thing is earlier in the day I was listening to a poem by him on Black Boy Magic on the Nguni Tribe page. I love that poem !!
It was my first time seeing Olive, When she started reciting I instantly knew she was dynamite !
Her subject matter is clear on each poem. Her delivery is as honest as the poem. The poems are mini stories and her emotions are very clear. I loved listening to her. Each round she just brought it and consistently. The poem she did in the final was massive ! She won !!
It was my second time seeing Busi and I really loved her imagery. I can still see this house that must be jailed. I so loved seeing the Joburg folk in Durban. For a moment I was in Newton mina. So thank you for visiting us. Good to see Durban does have a poetry community too.
So towards the end of the show, the leader of the organization called his team to the stage and it was such a big team. It’s a whole family of different personalities. The amount of time and dedication it must have taken to put the team together and drive the vision shows me that poetry is a verb. I’m so excited that Africans have created spaces and programs for poets to flourish, share poems and grow.
