ONE OF Berkshire’s hottest poetry competitions returned to crown an ultimate champion of verse.
Dreading Poetry Slam sees open mic performers battle it out in monthly heats of slam poetry, as judged by members of the audience.
Winners of the regular events then compete to find the ultimate winner for that year.
On Sunday, the event returned to The Rising Sun Arts Centre with eight competitors, hosted by last year’s winner and three-time champion, Sarah Smith.
She kicked off proceedings with a poem called 12 Days of Vegan Christmas, a reworking of the traditional carol, followed by a performance of Memo of Colour, which explored seasonal colours.
Then the first round of the competition was underway as Neil Smith took to the stage to perform a free-form piece, before Fi Dignan gave a strong performance of This Isn’t A Love Poem, which deals with domestic violence.
Steve Mingle explored food poisoning on holiday in Pictures of Your Dinner, Kathy Tytler gave a scathing but humorous criticism of social media, and Andrew Kanyemba mused on the teachings of Plato.
Westy Westwood performed with his usual irreverent aplomb, Rufus Irvine gave an impassioned reading of Size 10, an ode to a shirt in a charity shop, and regular Richard Stephenson performed A Poem Made of Letters 42.
Three sets of judges gave the poems scores which would be added to those for round two.
Round two saw Richard take on grammar, Rufus’s poem about their father, more free verse from Westy, a soaringly hopeful Ballad of Reading Gaol from Kathy, and a heartfelt poem about depression from Andrew.
This was swiftly followed by a reflection on the life of David Bowie, 8 Years, marking eight years since his death in 2016, by Steve.
Fi performed Pride of Lions, an ode to acceptance, before iconoclastic punk poetry from Neil closed the round.
Scores were totted up to reveal that Steve, Rufus, Andrew, and Fi had made it through to the final round.
After Steve humorously explored man flu, Rufus explored their darker side, Andrew gave a moving discourse on learning self-acceptance, and Fi rediscovered literary characters from her formative years.
Final scores were added up, and Fi was announced as the Dreading Slam Poetry Champion of 2023, taking the ceremonial winner’s mug.
Following her win, she said: “It was brilliant, and I wasn’t expecting it all.
“I qualified in May when I just rocked up and gave it a go, and I kept thinking about needing to come back.
“But when you have four kids, so coming out in the evening is often quite hard– but it was the final so I had to come.”
While not necessarily a regular, Fi says that she would seek to take part in more similar events.
“I need to make time to do this more frequently, it’s such good fun, and I’m looking forward to taking up a poetry course at South Street [Arts Centre].
“I want to get into more written work but also do more performing, because I like being on stage too.
“I am who I am on stage, and you’ve got to be authentic, so I just write about things which mean a lot to me.”
Host and previous champion Sarah Smith said after the event: “It’s been wonderful coming back to host and such a lovely crowd.
“I think the standard was really high tonight and Fi knocked it out of the park– and she’s from Wokingham, too.”
Dreading Slam returns to The Rising Sun Arts Centre on Sunday, February 4, and again on the first Sunday of every month.
