The Poetry Society is this year marking its centenary year with a host of events to celebrate 100 years as the nation’s leading champion of verse. Founded in 1909 to promote “a more general recognition and appreciation of poetry”, it has grown into one of Britain’s most dynamic arts organisations, representing British poetry both nationally and internationally. Today it has 3500 members around the world, publishes the leading poetry magazine the Poetry Review, and has an extensive education programme, including young peoples’ competitions, a poets in schools consultancy service, and school and youth membership packages. Plus, we are currently planning our new programme of work which will develop our relationship with local authorities and both established and trainee teachers.
I’ve spent most of the day working on the launch of SLAMbassadors UK, 2009’s slam poetry championship run this year in collaboration with BBC Blast. We’ve been co-ordinating the competition for seven years now and this is the first time it has been run as a nationwide project – we hope that the regional partners we’re developed over the last few years, particularly Writing on the Wall in Liverpool who partnered us on the slam last year, will help spread the word.
A few weeks ago, I spent a hilarious day at All Stars Boxing Gym in West London with Joelle Taylor, SLAMbassadors Co-ordinator, a group of previous Slam winners, and the BBC Blast team. Joelle and the slammers presented their top tips for writing and performing, a call to action for young poets all over the country, and performed their poems whilst sparring with giant comedy boxing gloves! You can see all of their videos here
SLAMbassadors is a really important project for the Poetry Society as it has given thousands of young people a voice and a chance to give their views about growing up in the UK today. From race relations, stereotypes, identity and Islamophobia through to domestic violence and the London bombings, it seems that the thing the young people that we work with through SLAMbassadors and Foyle Young Poets have in common is their ability to write well about things that many adults shy away from.
The rest of the day was spent on Facebook (doing work, honestly!) alerting our Foyle Young Poets through our dedicated group to various internship and editorial opportunities here at the Poetry Society and passing on our new FYP video. It’s great to have social networking sites such as Facebook to communicate with young people and the best part is that information about projects spreads so quickly. I never thought a time would come when virtual chatting would become a part of the working day but it looks like we’re already there!
