Time for the next open round of the Cambridge Hammer & Tongue 2014-15 season ... Spoken word artistry and competitive mayhem. What more could you want? This is your chance to become part of the spoken word slam brilliance that has graced this here fair city since 2009, in the warm and wonderful surroundings of fabulous venue The Fountain. Sign up as one of the eight to compete for a place in the Regional Final next September, become a judge, or just dive in and soak up the atmosphere and talent on… Show more display. And some great beer.
Tickets are a silly £5 full price/ £3.50 concessions/ £2 for slammers early bird (from now until 5 days before the event unless the batch (approx. half the advance tickets available) sell out)/ £6/ £4.50/ £2.50 otherwise in advance and a still frankly ludicrous £7.50/ £6/ £3 on the door . Doors are at 7:30pm; kick-off at 8pm. There’s also a bar upstairs... :D (Please note that “The Loft” part of The Fountain is, unfortunately, not currently accessible to wheelchair users - please contact us for further details.)
Vanessa Kisuule comes under many guises. Zealous and over-idealistic student. Weary but always well-meaning café-barista. And performance poet. Vanessa Kisuule is an ardent, inadvertent and lovestruck performance poet. She released her debut poetry collection 'Joyriding The Storm' this April on Burning Eye Books. She has won several slams including:
- Farrago School’s Out Slam Champotion 2010 - Bang Said The Gun Award - Poetry Rivals 2011 - Next Generation Slam 2012 - Slambassadors 2010 - South West Hammer and Tongue Slam Champion 2012 - Roundhouse Slam 2014 and Hammer Tongue Slam 2014
For more details, please visit http://vanessakisuule.wix.com
And she’ll be supported by Justina Kehinde, an award winning poet, jazz singer, actress and director. She made theatrical history in 2012 by directing, acting and co-producing the first all-black, all-female production on a Cambridge stage, before successfully taking the show to London for a sell out performance. She is a creative editor and contributor for independent women’s magazine MAGNIFY, has been published in two Cambridge literary publications, Notes and Winter Words, and the anthropological journal Imponderabilia. Her poetry ranges from concerns surrounding diasporic identity to human trafficking. When she isn’t singing, performing or writing, she can be found studying English Literature and Social Anthropology at Cambridge University. Read more of her words at http://deathofthewriter.wordpress.com/
Hosted by Fay Roberts, a Cambridge-based poet, musician, and unrepentant geek.
Facebook event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/536833813114536
Fancy Slamming?
The rules for H&T slams are as follows:
Slammers are chosen at random from the sign-up list to perform - spoken word only, no music, no props. Each competitor has 3 minutes from the time they start talking on the mic. After 30 seconds’ grace period, they start losing points (1 point for every 10 seconds!). At the end, they’re given points out of 10 by 5 judges chosen from the audience, while the top and bottom scores are removed to ensure fairness. The slammer gets a score out of 30, and the competition moves on.
The winner of that evening’s competition goes through to the Regional Final (the Cambridge one tends to be held in September), and the winner (and runner-up) of the Regional Final goes through to the National Final. The winner of the National Final gets crowned H&T National Slam Champion and can then go on to compete in things like the Radio 4 slam championships, the international slam championships, etc.
Aspirant competitors can sign up either by rocking up as doors open on the night (typically 7:30pm for an 8pm start) or by booking slam tickets in advance online. You can “express an interest” by emailing your name in advance, but that only gets you on the reserve list until you pay on the door.
There are no limitations on style of poetry - a typical slam will see sonnets, blank verse, hip-hop, rhyming iambic pentametric couplets and more all cross the stage - and we’ve seen winners who’ve read their poems out from the written version (paper, kindle, phone, beermat) so, while there are advantages to learning your pieces off by heart, it’s not a requirement!
Show less