a brave new word - SLAMbassadorsUK goes LIVE across the nation today! Brrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaapppp!!

Some poets write on paper and some poets write on air and we want to hear from you! Get ready to wrap your lips round a microphone and spit your way to the top stages in the country.

The national championship is open to all 12-18 year olds living in the UK who write an original 2 minute piece around the theme of Identity – who you are, where you are from and where you are going (check out the rules and theme notes here). It gives you the opportunity to reclaim your voice, edit it and amplify it to the nation.

Workshops aiming to inspire, advise and film emerging young poets will take place across the UKtaking in North Somerset to Tower Hamlets, Leeds to Liverpool, Buckinghamshire to Brixton and lots of stops in between. A team of established spoken word artists, rappers and poets will go into schools, youth clubs and theatres to root out young talent, working with aspiring artists to create a piece and filming it to upload to our SlamCam site. Entries will then be judged by respected artists – previous judges have included Benjamin Zephaniah, Scroobius Pip and Linton Kwesi Johnson – and winners offered mentoring and the opportunity to perform live in London in March next year!

The poets taking to the road with me this year will include former Slam winners Chris Preddie (aka Cashman), PACE, Louise Hill and Kayo Chingonyi alongside established artists Nikki Blaze, Khadijah Ibrahim and Beyonder. Many of the previous winners of the Slam are now big names on the performance poetry circuit.

Any young person can enter – you do not need to belong to a school or to have taken part in one of the free workshops. Enter independently here or watch this space for details of workshops near you.

“It was great to see so many entrants,” said previous judge, underground alternative hip hop emcee Scroobius Pip. “The styles were so varied yet all shared the same passion. The use and willingness to explore language with such creativity was amazing!”

We are in an era of huge political changes and uncertainty. But one thing will remain constant – young people’s dedication to speaking the truth, to having your voices heard and to wowing their audience with the rawness of your words.

Enter here now!

Joelle Taylor

The 9 national winners of SLAMbassadors UK, the country’s only talent scouting championship for spoken word artists, smashed the stage at the Drill Hall Showcase on March 6th! They had each spent the weekend in an intensive Master Class with poet and Artistic Director Joelle Taylor to help them fine tune their poetry and explore new forms and performance techniques.

The gig was HUGE. From the opening ‘Out in the streets they call it muuuuuuurder…’ to the final lines from Linton

Linton Kwesi Johnson

Kwesi Johnson, the stage was ablaze – wtih talent, honesty, artistic integrity, beauty, violence and love.  Poetry is intense. It is inspirational, and it is IMMENSE. Please do check out all of the winning poems, and show them to your children, your friends, a hidden writer you may have found.

The weekend was not just about creating powerful pieces for performance, but about introducing the young artists to a new and dynamic cultural network – the ‘slam-ily’ as one of the artists described it. This ‘slam-ily’ will share their writings with each other, advise each other on how to improve or add more tone to their work,  tip each other off to opportunities, record together and share stages. The slam-ily that gigs together, stays together. Although the UK winners are separated by distance and differing cultural and social backgrounds, they are united by their words. And thanks to contemporary digital advances, they are also now linked via technology. Online mentoring will continue and monthly meetings are are being set up.

SLAMbassadors UK – whilst the first major youth slam in the country – has always been slightly different to its sister slams. We do not mark as stringently. It is impossible to lose points in our slam. We have stopped waggling score cards in the faces of terrified youth. Points are awarded according to how many hairs raise on outr arms when we see your films. Crucially, we do not slam after the championship closes – we are not about winning against other slam teams, but about continued professional development for the spoken word artists involved. You will see us at gigs. You will read our work in magazines and anthologies.  Some of you will be in workshops facilitated by us. You  may hear us on the radio or catch a glimpse on some late night television show. But our words will always be with you.

We have now confirmed both a funky venue and incredible headline Icon of Poetry act to headline the UK Final SLAMbassadors UK Showcase! For this unique and dymanic meeting of disparate poetic minds over a hot microphone we now have the awesome LINTON KWESI JOHNSON, the dub-father, confirmed.

 SUNDAY 6th March 2011  from 5pm to 7pm

SLAMbassadors UK

Linton Kwesi Johnson

Joelle Taylor

“History of Slam” in the Music & Audio section of BBC Blast

The Poetry Society has had a very difficult job choosing from 400+ entries to this year’s competition and is pleased to announce the winners of SLAMbassadors UK 2010 – click on the names to watch their entries:

Antel Abada

Hezhenyi Cao

Hal Husbands

Remi Jackson

Vanessa Kisuule

Catherine Labiran

Lily Morris

Jamal Msebele

Tiana Oldroyd

Yahael Onono

This year, there is also a group of Commended Poets who will be hearing from us in due course. Well done to everyone who entered the competition – judges Adisa and Joelle Taylor have been astounded by your entries and urge you to keep writing and performing your work.