Photo credit: Amanda Penlington

On Thursday 26 October, The Students’ Union at Bower Ashton and UWE’s Drama department hosted a Poetry Slam Performance evening for Black History Month.

The evening was a huge success and the poems were of extremely high quality. The nine poets who took part spoke on themes such as family, gender, heartache and isolation. We were very lucky to have a former UWE drama student, Callum Wensley, there to host the evening as well as several other alumni. Callum commented:

“I was in awe of all of the slammers, every single one of them put their heart and soul into their words and it showed. I couldn’t have hoped for anything more, and the entire team of judges (Annie, Connor, Katie, Sethu, and myself) would like to say a massive well done again to all those that took part.”

Keira Hunt took first prize for her poem entitled ‘Hair’ which was a moving account of a medical condition that she has bravely contended with since the age of 12.

Robert Fannin, Head of Creative Writing, said that he has received an enormous amount of positive feedback about the event. We therefore hope to host another poetry slam in the very near future so that those who missed it last time will have another opportunity to take part.

The slam was followed by an interactive performance by Breathing Fire Theatre Company whose unique style of theatre truly embraced what Bower has to offer; opening up a conversation about where the inspiration from creativity comes from and then telling these stories through mime, poetry and monologue to poignant or comic effect. The Breathing Fire ladies commented on how much they appreciated the students’ openness by telling their personal stories.