By Lorna Callery-Sithole & CD Boyland

---

The Glasgow Review of Books is proud to be the only regular publication to cover the Scottish spoken word scene.

That’s why we’re delighted to announce that we’re holding our own GRB POETRY SLAM at The Britannia Panopticon on Sunday, 19 May.

To enter: send an email to glasgowreview@gmail.com with your name and contact details.

Right now, we’re looking back at last month’s Scottish Poetry Slam Championships with an exclusive interview, and our review of one of the most important events in the Scottish poetry calendar.

---

It’s a Friday night in March 2024, the eve of the Scottish Poetry Slam Championships and the GRB has come to the Bungo in Glasgow’s South side to meet Robin Cairns; veteran Slam Poet, tireless promoter of the Scottish spoken word scene and organiser of many poetry slams including the Scottish Poetry Slam Championships.

GRB: Hi Robin, thanks for taking the time to speak to The Glasgow Review of Books. Can we start by asking you to tell us about your signature hats. Do you always wear a hat to host poetry slams?

Robin Cairns (RC): I certainly wear my hat to poetry slams. I only wear them inside if it’s chilly. The Britannia Panopticon [venue for the Scottish Poetry Slam Championships] can be chilly, it’s a restoration project, it’s wind and watertight but the heating system is not fully operational.

The hat that I have with me today I bought in San Geminiano in Italy, and I went 45 miles out my way to get it, having bought a similar one the year before and having liked it so much. Yes, I do have a large collection of hats, but largely for outdoors.

GRB: How did you get into slam poetry?

RC: The first slam I took part in was in the basement at Nice’n Sleazy, smelling of god knows what, around 2000/2001 and it was run by Jem Rolls, who’s an English lad (the same age as me). He had come to the Edinburgh Fringe a number of times to do his poetry, he liked Edinburgh so much that he came and stayed for the winter, and started running events for four or five years under the umbrella of ‘The Big Word’, and he had some people who are still involved in the poetry scene on his board.

Gem ran great events, he’d put on four poets all doing twenty minutes in that basement. I was invited there many times and that’s where I first took part in poetry slams, which Gem had modelled on the Chicago and New York style of poetry competitions which emerged in the early 90s (92-93).

Marc Smith from Chicago claims that he was the first [person to run a poetry slam]. He’d been having a dull poetry night, so he made it into a competition.  From there, under the radar, slam poetry spread across the world to the scene we have today – which is getting bigger and more interesting all the time.

From there, under the radar, slam poetry spread across the world to the scene we have today – which is getting bigger and more interesting all the time.

GRB: How has Scottish Slam Poetry evolved over the past twenty years or so?

RC: There are lots of poets who will never take part in a slam, and that’s fair enough. It’s evolved in that what wins a poetry slam nowadays is not what would’ve won twenty-odd years ago. Funny men, comedians would win poetry slams twenty years ago, not every time, but in general those were the ones who did best. I probably did better during that period than I do now. I still take part in slams, partly because I feel, if I’m organising slams, I should have the raw experience of how awful it is to compete in them, so I do a few every year just for the public humiliation.

GRB Ha-ha, yes – that is good practice. How important are Slams to the audience?

RC: Audiences love the slam itself, they enjoy the entertainment but the poets have a lot more invested in it overall. There’s been a lot of competitions on television over the last fifteen years, everything from pottery to baking cakes, and people like it. It’s something cheap and primitive in us that we like to root for somebody. Rather than just watch one person making a teapot, we’d rather see five people making teapots, and then judge which is best and that’s just the way we are. Primitive.

GRB: Could that be the next big thing on TV, slam poetry?

RC: Well, it certainly could be, yes, we’re a bit edgy.

GRB: After the watershed!

RC: Some of us freely use bad language, and others have very firm political viewpoints, almost all left wing, you very seldom see anyone putting anything approaching a right-wing opinion in poetry. I actually think that we’re a wee bit poorer for that because we should have centred opinions. I don’t mean right-wing opinions, but we should have centred opinions as well as radical opinions because we’re all centrists in our own wee homes, we don’t act that radically amongst family and friends.

GRB: Have you ever judged the slams, or do you always host them, I think I’ve always seen you hosting them?

RC: I seldom judge. I feel it’s important,because I organise slams and Scottish slams, it’s important that the judges are not trying to please me, and it’s good when the poet who I don’t think is best triumphs because that means I’m not putting my finger on the roulette wheel.

GRB: For anyone who’s not used to going to slams, could you briefly explain the rules and judging criteria for competing?

RC: There are different formats but, the ‘Glasgow Rules’ for slams, which I put together after the experience of taking part in slams in southern England, travelling seven hundred miles, driving all day, you’re on at eight o’clock, you do three minutes, then by ten past eight it’s all over (laughing), you’re on your way home the next morning. I felt that poets weren’t being given a great chance.

So, I dumped the two minute idea, which was very popular twenty years ago and made it three minutes with everyone going up twice and that means that the person who goes up when the audience is cold and the judges are cool, gets to go on in the second half at the end, when everybody is hot for it, you know? So, you’ve got two poems, you’ve got a chance to do different things, show more of yourself, get over your nerves, so that’s what happens.

I usually have four judges and they judge on three principles – poem, performance, and audience reaction. Audience reaction is important because it means that the judge has to think outside themself; they can hear the room. If the room’s going (gestures) clap, clap, clap, and that was alright but the judge thinks it was brilliant, in that column they have to put in six, they can’t put in ten if the audience don’t agree with them.

How the judges interpret poem from performance, that’s up to them, they can judge the poem for its content, or they can judge it for its style. I tend to leave the judges alone. I ask them along, give them the three criteria. The poets go up twice, their marks are added together, and the three highest scorers go again in the final on the day and one person triumphs, and that’s our format, three minutes with a hooter if you run over.

I tend not to be prescriptive about docking points for those who run over because if you run over by two or three seconds, then what the hell, but if someone’s doing twenty-five seconds, half a minute over, I would expect the judges to mark it down. 

GRB: Can you tell us about the prize for the Scottish Final?

RC: There are cash prizes for the first, second, and third. I think it’ll be around £250 based on box office sales and split with the theatre. It’s a nice wee bung, it’s not going to change anyone’s life but then again, we’re doing this as independents, and what I mean by that is Creative Scotland are not putting up the prize money.

GRB: Do they normally?

RC: No. The Scottish Slam Championships have always been done out of box office, and there’s a dilemma there because if you’re in with the funding bodies, then you have more money, and I’ve never had that. But it’s important, because if you’re funded, you have to apply for your funds usually every year, then you become dependent on it and then if you don’t have the funds, you don’t do it, you know?

So, it’s essential in a grassroots movement like poetry. If you start a band, you don’t get money from Creative Scotland, you get paid by the pub. That is the model. You have to work your way up. And the movement as an artform has to work its way up. There are people who get funding from Creative Scotland for poetry, and that’s great but if that funding stops, it’s not sustainable. So, in a sense, I think it’s essential that’s parts of the scene remain independent.

GRB: It’s huge achievement to have kept the Scottish Slam Championship going all these years without funding.

RC: Well, there are great things out there and I want to bring more to that. I had preliminary discussions last week, about bringing the European Championships to Scotland in 5 years’ time. Maybe twenty, maybe even thirty poets, a large theatre, here for three days and the Europeans are very receptive to us doing that.

I’m now in touch with European organisers with good contacts and I have a friendship with one or two of them. So, maybe in five years’ time, if we manage to get some money from a sponsor, we could approach the funding bodies and see if they’re happy to match-fund it.

GRB: That would be amazing! We’d love to see the European Championships come to Scotland. On that note, so the winner of the Scottish Championships also goes to Europe?

RC: So, the winner gets to go to the World Series in Paris, and that’s a three or four day thing, you’ve got the heats, semi-finals and finals. If our winner  gets to the final, would appear on three different nights and be there for almost a  week. There’s hostel accommodation, flights, and food.

GRB: That’s a phenomenal prize – being able to have that kind of exposure whilst meeting all those different poets from across the world would be  a unique experience.

RC: So, there’s the World Series in Paris in May, for the last twelve years we’ve sent our winner to Paris, we’ve had three or four seconds and one winner, Sam Small, who won the World Series in 2018. Then the European Championships are being held in Kosice, in Slovakia, in December. Kosice is in Eastern Slovakia, almost in the mountains and I’ll be going to that and so will our winner.

Angie Strachan (Scottish Slam Champion 2023) is going to Togo for the World Championships in November. And our winner tomorrow will go to the next World Series event in Japan next year. So, you could say £250 isn’t much but the winner gets to go to Paris, Slovakia, and Japan. The poet has to help make some of this work as well. Hamish McDonald (Scottish Slam Champion, 2022) was brilliant with that.

GRB: Hamish was in Rio last year, wasn’t he?

RC: He was in Rio, and also in Rome, but he fed all the information back to me, all the contacts he made, because I didn’t get to Rio. Hamish funnelled a lot of  information and contacts back to me and I’ve been capitalising on them by going out my way to meet people while they’re in the country.  

I was down in England last week to see how they’re getting on because they’re not all pulling in the one direction. There are three or four organisations who all run the UK Slam, the British Slam, or the English Slam Championships and they really need to unify. I would like to get the European Slam to come to Scotland before it ever goes to England, just for a laugh!

GRB: What would you say to the criticism that Slam Poetry isn’t real poetry?

RC: Some of it is, some of it isn’t. Some of it is rhythmic prose, some of it is shouty rants, other people rhyme. I still do lyric poetry; I still rhyme from time to time. But the Chicago style – and I’m not blaming Chicago – but there’s a particular style endemic in England and very common on the east coast of Scotland and it’s a discursive spoken style, so it rattles along, then it slows down to make its points, and it gets samey. In Glasgow we’ve got different voices, I don’t mean our accent. There are working class voices coming into slam poetry through the Glasgow scene and I’m pretty proud of that.

There are working class voices coming into slam poetry through the Glasgow scene and I’m pretty proud of that.

GRB: Do you see a distinction between page poetry and performance poetry?

RC: I’ve never heard a slam poet say “Page poetry is rubbish!” We all read poetry and many slam poets are as well read and as interested in the breadth of culture than page poets.

GRB: What do you think the future of Slam Poetry is in Scotland? Do see the scene changing, improving, or evolving?

RC: It’s rattling along nicely. It was great when The Loud Poets got funding for their programme for slams¹  because it meant they could go on the road, they ’re running slams in Dumfries, Paisley and Aberdeen, and that’s terrific because you want to encourage people.

We have a criteria for the National Championships that qualifying slams must have eight contestants, and there was a slam in Stornoway with 6 or 7 people and I said “Send your winner!” because you want that diversity of people and voices.

GRB: Robin, thank you so much for giving us your time today  and we look forward to seeing the phenomenal talent on show tomorrow.

---

The interview is over but our coverage of the Scottish Poetry Slam Championships doesn’t end here. Read on for our exclusive review of this year’s event . . .

“English language is fucking stupid, right?” – may be an odd question to open a review of an event at which contestants were judged on their best, their most imaginative and impactful use of the English language (and Scots, and Spanish) but, hey, something that all good poets understand – when performing, you need a strong opening, to grab the audience’s attention from the start.

At the Scottish Poetry Slam Championships, there was much inventive, and powerful use of English and other languages, in front of an appreciative sell-out audience who’d gathered to listen to (in some instances, to judge) and to be entertained by a line-up featuring some of the most talented performers of poetry from around Scotland.

There are two dimensions to poetic performance which are –  1. subject-matter, rhyme-patterns, rhythm and a bunch of other stuff that falls loosely under ‘use of language’ (stupid or otherwise) – and, 2. the performance, something even more nebulous, attitude, gesture, physical presence, things which could also be summarised as animus – the extent to which the audience feels, as much as hears what’s being performed.

Many poets are good with words, many are good performers. Sometimes, an especial strength in one can make up for a degree of weakness in the other. But the best, of course, are both. And so it proved.

In terms of wordsmithy’ing – Lindsay Oliver’s feminist love poems (read, in the poet’s absence by host and compere Robin Cairns) and Nasim Rebecca Asl’s glittering waves of repetition which spun like the dandelion seeds of her opening piece were moments of gentle beauty.

Striking a similar chord, though on a different topic, Lynsey Gilmour’s fierce elegy to an emptied out Highland town was quietly, defiantly proud in the way it found music in absence and stillness.

Kayla Kennings pulled off a difficult trick – that of reading from a ‘phone but making the act welcoming, engaging and (ultimately) entertaining – deploying smart, neat gestures and facial expressions to draw the audience in.

Similarly, Molly McLachlan deserved better than the judges gave her for a compelling opening paean to Aberdeen which mixed wintry, lyrical resignation with bright-eyed, open-hearted appreciation.

Following the age-old slam rule – ‘Funny first, serious after’ – poems in the second round struck darker notes than those essayed in the first.

Handed something of a hospital pass when she was drawn to perform first, Donna Matthew rallied to eulogise the unknown victims of global geopolitics (“stitched up by the accident of birth”), in language that was both resonantly personal and furiously political while Jackson Harvey’s gallus humour felt a bit like author Chris McQueer’s prose patter in poetical form before things darkened appreciably on his return to the stage.

Lorna Callery-Sithole, performed similar shifts in quick-fire Scots, from a zippy, nippy opening to a tender, heartrending follow-on piece – while Georgia Bartlett-McNeil, powerfully multi-lingual in her first poem, embodied frantic rhythms of love and fear for her second, which opened with the arresting line, “When the person you love most in the world is a gun”. 

The National Finals are, of course, an all-Scotland competition and Aberdeen and the North-East were well-represented this year – by the above-mentioned Molly McLachlan, Sid Ozalid who deployed  wickedly grown-up childrens’ rhymes, including an uproarious encounter with Jesus in a gay bar (“Jesus grabbed the mic and really nailed it”) and Jo Gilbert, who dealt loudly and proudly with the spectre of imposter syndrome before embracing warm, messy, bodily humanity in her second poem.

From Inverness, Jack Hunter’s opening ‘Ballad of Bob the Bonny Baker’s Boy’ dropped plosive ‘b’ bombs while his second piece delivered one of the afternoon’s best rhymes (‘it’s vexing, to be compared to one of the X-Men’).

And, from further south in Fife, rapper Kemihamiha fired short, sharp batteries of bantz (marrying “close but no cigar” with “au revoir”) before kicking off his second poem with the (immortal?) line that opens this review.

As a venue for poetry, the Britannia is a bit of a tightrope. Get things right and it’s glorious – the audience’s regard reverberates, the walls themselves seem to applaud and everything immediately feels warmer and brighter. Miss your mark,though and an already somewhat daunting space feels that bit darker and quieter. 

Alongside with Jack Hunter (who finished in third place), the other two poets who made it through to the final three – RJ Hunter and Gordon Powrie both delivered masterclasses in how to manifest presence and personality as well as poetry.

Two contrasting performers, these – Hunter, was a verbal explosion of carnival’esque colour whose poems managed the enviable (and difficult) trick of shifting-gears, beginning in one register and ending in another – while Powrie arrived onstage, monochrome in appearance but possessed of a rapid-fire delivery that filled the venue with an industrial-strength volley of words.

Both of their final poems addressed the same issue – that of toxic masculinity, creating surrogates (Hunter’s ‘Big Man’ and Powrie’s demon named ‘Dave’) to embody the universal fears and failings of men-kind.

It was a horridly tight, close-run final from which Powrie emerged victorious (just) and [as explained by Robin in our interview, above] will shortly be looking out his passport for a trip to Paris for the World Series, followed by Košice in Slovakia, and then Japan.

RJ Hunter (winner of last year’ Loud Poets’ Grand Final, which we covered in an earlier post) will doubtless have their day, another day. They are too accomplished a performer for this not to be the case, with a witty, adroit delivery that mixes humour, pathos and polemic in just the right amounts.

But this year’s final belonged to Powrie – a popular, polished performer whose Paisley patter mines deep seams of dark humour. That this was his fifth appearance in a National Final goes to prove two things – not just that very Scottish principle, that perseverance will eventually pay off, but also that a dedication to poetry doesn’t have to be its own reward.

If you’re a fan of spoken word, or just want to find out what it’s all about, then don’t forget that The GRB Poetry Poetry Slam is happening on Sunday, 19 May.

Email – glasgowreview@gmail.com with your contact details to take part.

---

About our interviewer

1. The GRB understands that while The Loud Poets 2023 slam series was funded by Creative Scotland, funding has not been awarded for their current series, running during 2024. ↩︎