By Dan Thompson
After touring the county this year’s Kent Poetry Slam Championship, which takes inspiration from wrestling and stand up comedy and applies it to a spoken word event, comes to Margate this Friday (4th October).
Kent Poetry CIC is based in the Writer’s Room at Marine Studios on Albert Terrace. Directors Nina Telegina and Connor Sansby have taken the event, which they have previously run as the Margate Bookie Slam, on a county-wide tour to launch the Kent Poetry project, which has been supported by Arts Council England.
Dreamland in Margate will host the Thanet round of the Slam tour, providing a fighting ground for ten Kentish poets.
On 4th October, Dreamland’s Ballroom will have ten local poets battling 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.
The slam down will be followed by the reigning Kent Poetry Champion, Ciaran Barata-Hynes, will take on Michael Isaacs, winner of the Dover slam, going head-to-head in a gentlemanly contest of wills.
To top off the evening, there will be a performance by Raymond Antrobus. He has appeared on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 2, his poems “The Perseverance” and “Happy Birthday Moon” appear in the GCSE syllabus, and he was appointed an MBE in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to literature. He moved to Margate last year.
The latest round of the Kent Poetry Slam Championship takes place at Dreamland at 6.30pm on Friday 4th October. Tickets and more details can be found at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/margatebookie2024/t-dvqarpp
