Race is on to find Victoria's best poet

  • 2013-09-03
Keen performance poets from Abbotsford will soon have the chance to showcase their work in public, and may even win some big prizes.

A heat of the Australian poetry slam will be held at the nearby Richmond Library Theatre on Church Street later this month.

The competition, which aims to find Australia's best poet, has a number of local rounds before the winner and runner up in each category take part in the Victoria state final in October. Two winners from the state final will then head to the Sydney Opera House for the grand final later that month.

The winner will receive trips to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali and the Bookworm International Writers Festival in China next year.

To win the heat, poets must perform on the night and convince a judging panel selected from the audience that their work is the best.
Only 20 people can take part and registration opens half an hour before the event starts. Work must be original and last no longer than two minutes. Participants can perform poetry, spoken word, monologues or even rap and the work will be scored out of 10 by each judge.

Whatever the result on the night, participants might like to think about using printing services to create a permanent printed record of their work for personal use or even for local sale.

The event runs from 6:30pm to 8:00pm on September 12. For more information and the official guidelines, visit the Australian Poetry Slam website.