The Poetry Society

Rise Slam in the media

 
"Listening to last year’s respect poets reinforced my belief in the power of the word. These poems were more powerful than any political speech, they were more honest than any lecture, they spoke of history, they spoke of now, and they spoke of the future.

Its our duty to write and chat our story because of we don’t some so called expert will do it for us, and if that happens we have no right to complain.

The respect I have for ‘respect’ is immeasurable, the respect I have for the organisers and participants in this positive lyrical event is immeasurable, and the cultural and political possibilities that we can achieve are also immeasurable if we use our voices to state our choices, and release our inner force in our cultural intercourse.

Make poems not war.
Respect is due.
Respect to you."

Benjamin Zephaniah, 2005

RISE SLAM ROUND-UP

There have been murders. There have been terrorist attacks. There have been bus strikes, and theatre closures and police raids and mayoral elections and funding gained and funding lost.
 
And through it all, there has been poetry – astounding, confrontational, experimental, innovative, inspirational, guttural, beautiful poetry. It has come in the form of free-verse, it has come in rhyme and with rhythm and it has always, ALWAYS come as free speech.
 
The Rise Slam (aka The Respect Slam) began in 2002 as an anti-racist initiative fostered by the Poetry Society for the Mayor of London and the GLA. The idea was simple: to create a spoken word championship that targeted young people, and encouraged them to raise their voices in defence of themselves and their city.
 
What made the Rise Slam different, and over time what allowed it to appeal directly to emerging artists (as well as schools and youth organisations), was the emphasis on live performance: The Gig. For many of the young people who have crossed the Rise Slam stage, it was their first public performance of an original piece of their own work. It was this opportunity that successfully enticed teenagers from their bedrooms and their home computers and into the public arena.
 
The very first youth slam event was held in the cavernous environs of Chats Palace in Hackney, east London during April 2002. It was a one-round slam where poets and rappers who got through made it straight into the semi finals, which were later held at the Oval House Theatre. Two years later we needed to hold 4 quarterfinals and 2 semi finals just to try and see all of the talent that applied to participate. We have performed at and forged strong relationships with many venues across the city – the Arts Theatre in Piccadilly, the ICA on the Mall, Soho Theatre on Dean Street, the Ocean in Hackney, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Stratford Circus, Jackson’s Lane in Highbury, the Millennium Dome (now the O2), the Royal Court, Shakespeare’s Globe, the School of Oriental and Oriental Studies, the Royal Festival Hall, the Bug Bar in Brixton, Brixton Arts Space, the Arts Depot in Finchley as well as Chats Palace and the Oval House Theatre.
 
The politics of the project aside, the slam could not have continued to be so successful unless it aimed for artistic excellence. As you will see from reading the ‘Where Are They Now?’ round up, many of the slammers have gone on to forge professional careers in the written and spoken word and all have found their time in education enhanced by the experience.
 
We have many anecdotal stories to tell – from the Year 11 boy who would not go to school, took part in the slam as a free-styler and then regularly began attending class again. That in itself is a success story, but what makes it more powerful is that the poet in question had been thought of as illiterate. Taking part and winning a team place gave this young man the courage to return to school and face his issues with conventional literacy. He is a well thought of underground hip hop artist today. There was the girl who was on the edge of exclusion, but then won the top award in the slam and within months found herself top of her class at Eton summer school; or the girl who was bullied into silence finally speaking out. She is now poet in residence at Vauxhallville, runs her own spoken word night, and is a voluble campaigner for justice; the boy who held his best friend dying in his arms and then went on to write a piece about it imploring the violence among teenagers to stop; the young man who entered the stage in an attempt to shake off gang life, and is now one of most respected and requested artists on the London scene, and committed to helping other young people find their microphones.
 
The Rise Slam will be back in 2009. Stronger. More committed. More left-field. Never fitting quite right in the box. We will be back because the young people who make it work will not go away. The politics that make up their lives will not go away. The passion for poetry will not leave us just because funding is in short supply. When the championship dusts off the microphone next year or the year after, the first words that will be spoken into it may be yours.
 
Every word that has been spoken in the Rise Slam has been collected inside that microphone. We may not be able to hear them, but they are there. As the young poets grow and become professional artists the microphone will forever have captured their first words.
 
Thank you to everyone who has made the project possible, endurable and unique. See you very soon – and with a little luck and a great deal of hard work from the Poetry Society, you will not need to live in London to take part. We aim to take the Rise Slam to national level over the next year or two.

Happy Days!! The Rise Slam Winners 2005 accept a cheque from the Big Lottery fund which enabled the Slam to become an annual artistic fixture until this year.
Right to Left: Laniya Numakasa, Ms Scora D, Big Lottery Lady, Faizo Mudde and Dream.

Summary of Press Coverage

There have been numerous articles, radio shouts and television slots devoted to the Rise Slam and its participants in the last 6 years. Some have been high profile startling events, and still more have appeared in local press and radio and on cable television, raising awareness both of the slam and the capital’s young talent and of the socio-political issues which they tirelessly address. The Poetry Society in collaboration with the GLA press & Marketing Department have handled most of the publicity for the competition over the years, but the participants themselves have also highlighted the project – posting films on You Tube, bulletins on My Space and speaking directly with local press and radio. We have attracted the attention of vibrant community and artistic leaders like Lee Jasper, Doreen Lawrence, Benjamin Zephaniah and the Poet Laureate; not to mention Edwina Curry, Kila Kella and Vanessa Feltz. We have performed for Gordon Brown as Chancellor and even taken tea with the Queen. More importantly, we have given space for the unknown to have a voice – Eugene Attram was murdered in 2006 compelling his sister to get on the stage and speak out about teen violence long before the politicians got involved. Listed below are some of the more memorable mentions in the media, ranging from the Guardian to the Independent, from Time Out to Radio 1 via Blue Peter and Faking It and on through Politics Today and The Culture Show. There have been some incredibly moving moments which have been captured in print or sound or in pictures - and are now ready for you to browse through.

Treasury Report

In 2007, the Rise Slam and its off-shoot the Poetry SLAMbassadors were noted as recommended arts practice for hard-to-reach young people in the capital, resulting in the following report in the Treasury’s Ten Year Youth Strategy review. This was a highlight in the history of the slam, and renewed the Poetry Society’s commitment to building on its reputation as the only professional development slam in the UK.
 
Box 2.x: "SLAMbassadors - How poetry slams can build skills and improve outcomes: London's city-wide slam poetry team, the SLAMbassadors, combines opportunities for personal development with political activism, and the chance for young people to develop a real skill. Run by the Poetry Society with funding from the Big Lottery Fund, the team is made up of young people who are interested in slam, rap, beatbox and emcee and have come through the Rise Youth Slam Championships. Participants in the championships, many of whom are from challenging backgrounds, receive support from professional slam poets to develop their work, as well as their personal skills such as sticking to a task, and coping with setbacks. One previous participant was entered in the competition by his English teacher in his Pupil Referral Unit; after going on to win the competition, he was able to use his poetry as coursework to gain a GCSE in English.
Winners of the competition go on to make up the core SLAMbassadors team who hold poetry slam workshops for other young people all around the country and bring their message to a wide range of audiences, such as Human Rights Watch at the Globe Theatre, and the July 7 bombings memorial event in Trafalgar Square."

Dee O'Connell. Children and Young People Review: Ten-Year Youth Strategy

BBC Blue Peter

In 2005 the Poetry Society were contacted to provide the winners of that year’s competition to perform on Blue Peter alongside Ms Dynamite, in a live slam judged by her. As a result, Joelle Taylor took that year’s overall winner Laniya Numakasa and SLAMbassadors Korbel and PACE to freestyle to a theme of the presenter’s choice. This was a superb opportunity for the young artists to reach a huge audience, and a terrifying test of their skills. Naturally, they won through in the end and their performance is still talked about today.

The Weekender (Radio 2)

The last radio interview was conducted at the London Transport Museum’s Slam – organised by the Poetry Society - on National Poetry Day 2007. The last ever winner’s Stephanie Turner and Onome Edgeworth, who also won the prize of Poet in residence at the Transport Museum, performed for  a piece on the Matthew Wright Show and were also interviewed along with the artistic director.

‘Faking It’

In 2005 Joelle Taylor was approached by BBC 1 to act as a mentor on their Faking It style CBBC1 programme. The aim of the programme was to prepare the presenter Otis as a performance poet, help him to write and original piece and then guide him through performance techniques before giving him his first bite of a live spoken word performance at the Rise Festival in July of that year. All went to plan – apart from Otis forgetting some of his words live on camera! – and the audience judged that he had indeed Faked it well enough. However, as Otis himself said at the time, he would hang up his stanzas for a while and let the real young professionals take over…

Radio 1 Drive Time/ 1Xtra

In 2007 we got a call from one of our major teacher contact Fatima Conteh. Through various contacts she had managed to secure a half hour slot on Radio 1 during the Drive Time hour. Teon Blake, Sic Sense, Chris Preddie and Joelle Taylor took over the station and spat original raps and rhymes and chatted about the championship. By the end of the allotted time our mobile phones were full of text messages from eager young artists wanting to sign up. It is the first time that a project like this has had such a remarkable opportunity to reach so many people, and we are deeply indebted to Radio1 and Fatima for setting it all up. The young people who took part that day will never forget it. 

Choice FM

The Angie Le Mar Show invited Joelle Taylor on to talk about the Rise Slam along with the previous year’s winner Chris Preddie. What began as a brief chat soon turned into a full performance from Chris and Joelle, and his poem ‘apology’ to his mother was recorded by K@ and replayed throughout the day – including on the Richard Blackwood Show. To make things even better, K@ asked Chris to contribute to an album he was working on.

Kiss FM

Kiss FM interviewed the artistic director live from the outside the semi finals in 2005, and pumped it straight out on the air. It was unheard of for a dance radio station to promote the spoken word, and we are still wondering quite how it was received by the hard core toe-tappers…

Time Out

In 2006 the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion attended the Rise Slam North Quarterfinals at Jackson’s Lane Theatre in Highgate, on behalf of Time Out. The double page spread with full colour photographs entitled I Think Therefore I Slam appeared in the May edition of the magazine giving much needed and appreciated positive coverage of the championship and, more importantly, giving the poets involved a huge boost in confidence. He began by writing,
 
‘…after the Emcee Joelle Taylor had shaken the rafters in her introduction, the theatre felt more like Wembley than the slopes of Parnassus. Without exception, the performers captured the authentic and unignorable sounds of modern London in their work, rhyming and chiming and chanting and ranting in a mood of quickly rising excitement. Familiar phrases were broken open by contact with new structures, slow thoughts were wound around quick beats, hilarity jostled with anger, and pathos with passion.’Andrew Motion, Time Out May 24-31 2006
 
He concluded an impassioned article with a call to the readers to support the slam at the finals – and indeed at every stage of its 7 show journey,
 
‘With such a spread of talent, and so much intelligent conviction, the final is bound to be a close run thing. Be there – not just because the slam deserves a lot of support, but because  it’s high-quality, good fun and a terrific example of how people can educate others even as they are being educated themselves.’ Andrew Motion, Time Out May 24-31 2006
 

The Guardian Weekend Magazine

Jay Bernard featured in the 16 year anniversary edition of the Guardian Weekend Magazine in 2005 – a publication that focussed on 16 year olds to watch out for. Jay had recently won the Rise Slam, as well as being short listed for the Foyle Young Poet of the Year Awards, and this was enough to win her the accolade and to have her photograph taken by none other than David Bailey.

 
The Independent

Showing once more that The Rise Slam is a championship that crosses all borders, including from local to national press, in 2004 the West Quarterfinal at the Institute at Contemporary Art was covered by former Director of the Poetry Society Christina Patterson in the Independent Review. This was event close to Patterson’s heart as she was instrumental in its initial devising and in contracting Joelle Taylor to co-ordinate the project. Never the less, we were unprepared for the huge 2 page feature that appeared in such a prestigious publication.
 
‘‘It’s not about tolerance, it’s about respect!’’, yells the figure at the front, to a medley of stamping feet and whistles. For the past few minutes, this tiny elfin creature in leather trousers and a diamante-studded top has been whipping us into a frenzy of enthusiasm, training us, in fact, in the art of ‘bigging up’…In the seats around me, children are wriggling. They’re excited, but they’re also scared. When the MC yells out heir names they’ll be up there, too…Off stage, some were a little surly, unused to shining in – or out of – the school arena. Onstage, shoulders went back and faces lit up…They kiss the microphones and start emitting the extraordinary mix of orally produced drum and bass sounds known in rap as ‘beatbox’. And then they launch into their poem: an impressive polyphonic rap performed at breakneck speed and with considerable panache.’ Christina Patterson, The Independent Review Tuesday 15 June 2004
 
Slowly but surely, with articles such as these, the Rise Slam (known then as the Respect Slam) began to be taken seriously as an artistic as well as a socio-political exercise. And it also began to be incorporated into serious mainstream poetry culture, and not simply dismissed as a hip hop event. Indeed, in the early days some of the coverage in the newspapers focussed primarily on the seemingly hilarious notion of young people – and in particular young black boys – taking part in a poetry competition and so could only really perceive the Rise Slam as a rap event. In fact, the split between free-verse and rhythmic rap or emcee spits is divided quite evenly. Oh yes, even young boys write and perform beautiful, emotive and moving poetry.

And finally

The final television performance by members of the Rise Slam took place in July 2007 at the Rise Festival when Sic Sense took to the stage and were filmed live by BBC1 for a debate around gun and knife crime. They followed this with an in depth interview with Chris Preddie about his personal experiences. Chris also appeared on Donal McIntyre’s Gangs programme, looking at why gangs form and more importantly how people may break out of them. This was an extraordinarily brave and risky interview by Chris, involving him returning to his former stamping grounds and encouraging others to leave.
 
We have also attracted our fair share of criticism over the years – particularly early on when no one seemed to understand what we trying to do. Some of the reports have been – in the organiser’s opinion – downright racist and certainly youth-wary. The one report that sticks in all of our minds however was entered on the web. A site called Daily Ablution made it their sole purpose to discredit the slam – citing that it was one of Ken Livingstone’s initiatives (untrue – all our own work, but Ken has been consistently supportive). The Ablution then went on to discredit Joelle Taylor (publishing an awful photograph to back up their claims!) and then they delivered their punch to the gut: a photograph taken without permission of four members of the Rise Slam team, naming them as illegal immigrants and gang members. We took what action we could, but the site still remains active today. For the record, the photograph was of 4 children - London community members, and excellent poets.
 
We support free speech. We insist on it. Even when it damages us. The Rise Slam is the definition of free verse free speech.

Also

See Korbel on Channel 4’s 3Minute Wonder, a film by Debbie Anzalone: http://www.deborahanzalone.com/3minutewonder/korbel.mov