By Robin Cairns
Last month, Angie Strachan – recently touched down on Renfrewshire tarmac after a week representing Scotland in the World Poetry Slam Championships, in Togo (West Africa, next to Ghana) and happy to splurge from a flush fund of new inspirations and experiences – dropped into The Bungo in Glasgow’s Nithsdale Road to report to me in my capacity as chief organiser of the Scottish National Poetry Slam.
“Like a holiday but brimming with emotion” Angie bubbled, “I saw mangoes, green mangoes growing on a tree! And the African poets just bursting into song at any minute. But the poverty, it was so upsetting! The first day was all bizarre, strange, exciting. Then I was up at six in the morning to appear on Togo TV!”
As winner of the Scottish National Slam Championships, Angie has now represented her country abroad on three occasions. The first in Paris at the World Series, a yearly event run by a tight committed clique of French poetry zealots on the steep urban drumlins of Belleville where the douce eleventh rubs up against the rackety twentieth arrondissement.
Mme Strachan d’Ecosse came a very creditable third in the competition, a feat made more remarkable by her impact relying on the synchronous appearance of subtitles in French on the big projection screen behind her to aid comprehension by judges and punters.
In Paris for four days, Angie took the chance to make pals and form contacts with poets from all parts – this networking mostly taking place across the tables in Culture Rapide, a hotbed of spoken word all year round but for one week of the long Paris spring a pavement café Babel of international bards eating, imbibing and ear-bending.
The café is owned by the redoubtable Pilote Le Hot, instigator and compere of the Paris World Series, to which we in Scotland have now been sending champions for fully 15 years. We even won it best part of ten years back, Sam Small triumphant on that grand day.
“I saw a man kill a snake with a spade!” says Angie. (We’re talking Togo again). “We had to go to the market to buy sheets. And there weren’t enough beds. I had to sleep with Pixie from Denmark!”
It’s a tough life as an international poet. Arriving in Antwerp for the European Championship back in January this year, Angie promptly got horribly lost between the train station and the hostel in which the poets were staying. Technology and a good husband solved the problem though, Angie on her mobile describing the Antwerp alleys and shops to Graeme poring over streetview on his laptop and giving her directions from their home in Glasgow.
The Belgians are probably the best organised nation for slam poetry in Europe, possibly the world. With the muscle and finance of Antwerp University behind him, Philip Meersman has done sterling work in recent years drawing together the disparate nations to meet and develop the nascent Slam scene.
The European Champs were held in a huge sixties brutalist theatre, the De Singel, just over the ring road into the Antwerp suburbs. Vast windswept concourses, vistas of isolated sculptures in ponds, silent carpeted hallways – and in the heart of the complex, a five hundred seat theatre filled with customers curious to see this year’s cream of European spoken-word artists in action.
Oor Angie came a creditable sixth on the night out of thirty-two competing nations – and by doing so qualified to take part in the Togo World Championships. Only ten nations from Europe make the cut. Hamish MacDonald limboed in the year before and won himself a trip to Rio De Janeiro.
Next year, if our Scottish champ keeps up the run of form there will be an invitation to go to the Worlds in Mexico. As a fully paid-up member nation of the WPSO (World Poetry Slam Organisation) Scotland is deeply involved in defining the future shape of these competitions and in lobbying for funding. Regular meetings have been held at which the various “Slam Masters” (ridiculous term, I know, but it probably sounds okay if English is your second language) discuss pushing our young, spotty, awkward adolescent movement forward. More to come soon in Kosice (December 2024) and Brussels (Jan 2025).
Back to Togo. The host nation took the business of running the World Slam very seriously. Telly coverage, the Minister of Culture attending, elaborate opening ceremony, endless photocalls – they even provided a hefty gold trophy (not dissimilar to the Jules Rimet) which big Phil Meersman paraded around the theatre with an apparent solemnity and dignity that I am not entirely sure (Phil is quite a humorous chap) he truly felt inside.
The competition went off well enough – slams often have a bit of a fraught atmosphere as some contestants and their loyal acolytes can’t help investing intense oodles of unfocussed hope into the process. It’s understandable, everyone wants to acquit themselves well and the disappointments can be deep.
In Togo, a minor slip by the organisers meant that one lad was told he was through to the final then – so cruel – informed that there had been an error and he was only the fastest loser. Poor chap was in despair, on his knees and beating the floor with his fists. Slam Poetry may just be a parlour game at heart but the stakes can be very high.
In Togo, Angie and a couple of other poets felt their chances were somewhat dulled by the projected subtitles for their work appearing in text too small for the audience – and even the judges – to read. This glitch was fixed for the next round but by then the damage was done. Some countries saw it as rough luck and put it behind them, others were a bit more exercised over the matter.
One of the issues under review at “Slam Master” meetings is whether we should have an internationally recognised book of procedure and rules for slams. Might help. Personally, I am in favour of folks doing largely what they like on their own turf and compromising on any differences when they all come together. Tight organisation and technical rectitude are obviously desirable but can’t realistically be prescribed, especially not to the gloriously riotous roster of oddballs who tend to run slam poetry competitions.
The USA won in Togo, Chev the triumphant poet, a demanding performer of drama and fury. Good to see the USA doing well internationally when their own poetry scene is so huge and sometimes reasonably lucrative that it discourages Americans from getting involved with us out here in the rest of the world. I look forward to meeting the US “Slam Master” in the near future to see what we can learn – and possibly share with them.
Next window in the slam advent calendar opens on Košice in Slovakia, where Gordon Powrie, our current champion, will be taking part in the Europeans this December 13th and 14th. The big final’s on the Saturday night. I’ll be there to cheer him on (and to talk Slam Master stuff with the other Slam Masters!) Košice’s a forgotten city – way way east of Bratislava, only 70 miles from the Ukraine border, nestled in the dark winter mountains. I’m told that if you stray too far out into the suburbs, you might meet bears in the bins rooting for food. But Gordon’s from Paisley. He’ll do okay.
Since this article was submitted, Gordon Powrie won bronze in Košice, finishing 3rd in the final of the European Slam Poetry Championship on 14 December and qualifying for the World Championships in Mexico, in 2025.
Theresa Sperling of Germany was crowned champion, second prize went to Sven Stears of England.
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