By Dan Thompson
A Margate-based promoter is behind this year’s Kent Poetry Slam Championship, which takes inspiration from wrestling and stand up comedy and applies it to a spoken word event.
Kent Poetry CIC is based in the Writer’s Room at Marine Studios on Albert Terrace. Directors Nina Telegina and Connor Sansby are taking the event, which they have previously run as the Margate Bookie Slam, on a county-wide tour as they launch the Kent Poetry project, which has been supported by Arts Council England.
Fort Amherst in Medway will host the first round of the Slam tour, with future slams in Folkestone, Dover and Dartford, providing fighting grounds for ten Kentish poets. The overall winner will become the Kent Poetry Champion.
On June 8th, Fort Amherst will see the first ten local poets battle for the Kent Poetry Championship belt and £75 (£50 first place, £25 runner up) in prize money. Each performer will have three minutes to showcase their piece to the audience, including three judges picked at random right out of the audience. To spice things up a little more, an 11th lucky contestant will also be selected by raffle on the night.
The slam down will be followed by the reigning Kent Poetry Champion, Ciaran Barata-Hynes (pictured), and the winner of Margate Bookie 6, Chris Matthewman, going head-to-head in a gentlemanly contest of wills.
To top off the evening, there will be a performance by Tyrone Lewis, UK Poetry Slam Champion, Roundhouse Poetry Slam Champion, Axis Poetry Slam Champion, and author of the ‘Blackish’ and ‘2Black2Furious’ collections.
The first round of the Kent Poetry Slam Championship takes place at Fort Amherst, Chatham at 4.30pm on Saturday 8th June. Tickets and more details can be found at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/kentpoetrycic
