Ipswich City Council

Media Release

Special Ipswich Poetry Feast slam poetry event to be held at Hotel Metropole

4 July 2008

THE excitement of slam poetry will be demonstrated at the Hotel Metropole later this month during a special Ipswich Poetry Feast event.

Queensland's slam master David "Ghostboy" Stavanger will host the night from 6pm to 9pm on July 18 in the hotel's bar area.

Ipswich Poetry Feast Chairman Councillor David Pahlke said prize money of $100 would be awarded to the best slam poet on the night.

Cr Pahlke said the community were encouraged to support the night which was being held to further promote slam poetry which was a live spoken word competition that has become a global phenomenon since first being introduced in the 1980s.

Open to all people and all forms of spoken word - poetry, hip hop, theatre or whatever - each person "slams" their words for two minutes to a live audience among whom five are selected to score each poet's work.

The audience at a slam has the freedom to express itself in any way they see fit and can scream and cheer or if they do not like a poet, they can finger snap, foot stomp and even boo.

Cr Pahlke said the Ipswich Poetry Feast was keen wherever possible to encourage and support all forms of poetry and had backed a number of events in the past.

"Slam poetry aligns with the Ipswich Poetry Feast as we are all promoting poetry and literary expression.

"This month's event should be a highly entertaining night of fun and poetry."

Cr Pahlke said Queensland was now home to an active slam poetry movement led by Ghostboy who won the prestigious Performance Poetry World Cup in 2005 and was runner-up in 2007.

He is currently working hard to establish himself as one of Australia's most innovative performance and spoken word artists.

In 2006, Ghostboy established the highly successful Queensland Poetry Festival slam with his mentor and close friend Marc Smith from the United States who is the founder of the slam form.

Ghostboy was the captain of the 2006 Queensland World Wrestling Federation slam poetry team at the 2006 Sydney Writers Festival.

In recent years Ghostboy has been a regular at major festivals throughout Australia including The Sydney Writers Festival, "NightWords" at the Sydney Opera House, Broken Hill Poetry Festival, Brisbane Writers Festival, The Queensland Poetry Festival, The Festival of Cairns and The Noosa Long Weekend Festival.

Ghostboy is also the co-ordinator of two of the nation's biggest slam events in the Australian Poetry Slam (Queensland heats and final) and the WordFood slam and spoken word showcase that is held as part of the Woodford Folk Festival.

Since 2006 Ipswich has each year hosted a heat leading up to the WordFood slam at the Woodford Folk Festival and a representative from Ipswich has represented the city at the slam final at the festival.

A $5 entry fee applies for performers but entry to the event is free for audience members.

-ENDS-

Search the media release archive

Last Updated 4 Jul 2008 |

Print this page |