Students to slam down some new words

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Young poets will be slamming with one of the UK’s top performance poetry slam groups this autumn.

Farrago Poetry pioneered ‘slam poetry in the UK’ and are coming to Jersey as part of the Island’s first big literary festival – Connections: Jersey Festival of Words in October.

Slam poetry started in Chicago in the mid-80’s with poets performing either alone or in teams to impress a judge or the audience and are scored for the content of their work, style and how they deliver it.

The event is being led by celebrated performance poet John Paul O’Neill who will be teaching secondary school students how to prepare their own slam poetry pieces before they perform them on stage in a multi-school slam event at the Opera House on Friday 2 October.

The first Farrago Workshop kicks off at the end of September at Grainville School.

Grainville’s Head of English Paul Harris said: “We’re looking forward to hosting the poetry slam workshop. It will allow students to work alongside each other in a creative capacity and give them the opportunity to showcase their talents.”

Grainville, Hautlieu, Victoria College and De La Salle have already signed up to take part in the workshops and poetry slam event which, thanks to an anonymous festival donor, are all free of charge. Any other schools that want to take part can contact Jersey Festival of Words at www.info@jerseyfestivalofwords.org and you can find out more about the event here.