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Raven Maguire is Liverpool’s winning slam poet Poetry event.
‘Superheroes Of Slam’ held it’s 7th in a series of 10 heats at
Leaf, bold street last night. The competition open to spoken word artist’s
regardless of age and experience, will culminate in a grand finale held at the
Afflecks Arcade, Manchester, Friday 23 October.
Raven Maguire won the heat with her powerful piece about the struggle to reject
temptation in the form of commercialism. Performers are given three minutes to
showcase their work and are scored directly after, out of ten from the judges
who included; Jennifer John- Artistic director of Sense of Sound and Yaw Owusu-
Curator of LIMF Festival.
Previous winner Joy France opened the night with a poem called ‘Dear Mr Bic’, a
humorous and cheeky response to the introduction of a slimmer biro pen made for
women. France defied the pleas of the host for poems not to contain swear words
but was easily forgiven due to the unmistakeable cheers and acceptance from the
audience.
Throughout the evening poets took to the stage to wax lyrical on a range of
issues. Powerful performances included a piece from an ex soldier, abandoned by
the military once back on sivvy street and suffering from depression. Themes
throughout the night including female objectification, disability, capitalism
and political divide were tackled with confidence and skillful wordplay.
There was lighter but equally intelligent fair from poets such as Susan Fagan
who talked about accepting her single status and appreciating her life in ‘Love
doth stink’. Dave Vineys poem ‘David’ was a nostalgic and quirky piece about
adolescence and schoolboy errors and Tom George delivered a comic turn in his
poem about discovering your flatmate reads the Daily Mail
.
The evening showed what a diverse and talented city Liverpool continues to be
and how its’ voice adapts to contemporary issues, remaining strong and defiant
in it’s resolve.
For more information about further heats go to; www.writeoutload.net
www.cultureword.org.uk