While much of Wellington was dancing to the beat of the Sevens last night, The Fringe Bar got its own rowdy crowd of diehard poets and their audience who revelled in the finals of Wellington’s fourth Raw Poetry Slam.  

For those who are yet to experience one of these epic bouts of poetic battling, they work as so: after initial rounds that knock out many a fine (and possibly not so fine) poet, the finals begin with a select group of seven challengers. On this occasion we hear from Vex Chat-Blanc, Michelle Keedwell, Michael Howard, Duncan Hope, Ben Stokes, Jackson Nieuwland and Hilaire Carmody. Each poet takes to the stage and performs an original poem for no longer than 3 minutes. After each poem a group of randomly selected audience judges deliver marks out of 10, the mean average of which decides which two poets will not be progressing to the next round.  

MC Jerome Chandrahasen pleases the crowd from the get go and explains how the evening is going to proceed with warmth and wit. We are encouraged to be supportive to the judges and poets alike – a request that is wholeheartedly taken on board by the audience. I believe this is the only poetry event I have ever attended that didn’t draw a heckler from the crowd.

All of these poets have grasped one of the important aspects of a poetry slam, which is that these are poems that are being performed. In a variety of styles – the semi-rap being the most common – each of these seven poets really do take to the stage and deliver a performance of their work and the calibre is high.

However not all seven can get through rounds one and two to earn a chance to deliver their final, saved-up poem in the third and final round. 

Eventually the poets are whittled down to three: Michael Howard, who all night has been delivering dry, acerbic, witty verse poems, at times seemingly channelling Roger McGough; Ben Stokes, who has been delivering semi-rap, initially charming the audience with an ode to New Zealand; Duncan Hope, another semi-rap style poet with a lot of (anti)colonial and (anti)religious imagery.  

Interestingly all three of these blokes finish the night with a love poem and in the case of all three the crowd goes wild. They’re all genuinely enjoyable. My favourite poem of the night is pulled out here by Duncan Hope with his hilarious and heart-wrenching ‘Dear Benjamin’. However after the judges make their final votes the winner of the evening is Ben Stokes.

I highly recommend you get along to the next event of this nature – especially the finals. All three of these chaps are poets to watch, which is exactly what a poetry slam gives us the chance to do.

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