If you’ve never been to a poetry slam, you should try it. If you’ve never entered a poetry slam, you should try it. Admittedly, I say this as someone whose never done either…until I was invited to one by Jade Ball and Ciaran Moss, Masters students and graduates of our BA (Hons) Creative Writing degree.
I wasn’t sure what to expect exactly. My hopes weren’t high, I must confess, largely due to my own ignorance. I didn’t even know what slam poetry even was.
“Slam poetry is competitive spoken word,” explains Jade, “It’s about taking a poem off the page and putting a new element to it by performing it. There is a competition element to it, but what we were really trying to focus on with this is that the competition isn’t important at all.”
Poetry needs to be performed, argues Jade. That’s when it comes alive, that’s when it takes on the dynamism and radicalism of other performance artforms like hip hop, rap, or pop music. Eye- and ear-opening stuff.
But what I really didn’t expect was how brilliant the performers would be – mostly creative writing students, mostly aged between 17 and 25, all tongue-twistingly articulate, all nerveless. And if they weren’t, they sure hid it well.
Most were performing their poetry to an audience for the first time – and willing to be judged by a panel consisting of performers and teachers.
Ciaran also found performing difficult. Initially, anyway. What’s his advice to any wannabe poets?
“The only way to get good at it is to do it. You can’t get good at it thinking about doing it. You have to just rock up and give it a go. If you’re bad at it, you’re bad at it. You will get better. But to get better at it, you have to do it.”
“Fear isn’t a good enough reason not to do something. Just take a deep breath,” adds Jade.
They had to take their own advice when it came to organising the event. They had no experience, had taken no classes in event management, and, perhaps most challengingly, had no budget. For someone who entertained ideas of joining the army at 14, that would be no problem, surely…
“We had quite a hard time because we were relying so heavily on funding and that was probably the wrong move. So it was a big learning curve for us in terms of still getting stuff done,” says Jade.
Fortunately what they did have was energy, determination, vision, contacts, and Edge Hill’s creative writing department to fall back on. Time to use their way with words, time for a charm offensive. They persuaded “amazing” facilitators to provide their services free of charge – and local businesses, such as air con company CareQuick, donated prizes.
They were also able to draw on the extensive experience of their tutors, like published poet and veteran event organiser Dr Zayneb Allak:
“The biggest challenges when organising an event like this are: competing with all the other events that are going on and getting people to come to yours. Also, scheduling and time frames – everyone is so busy all the time, so you have to really think ahead and make sure that you give everyone enough time to make their contribution without being stressed. But for Jade and Ciaran, I’d say one of the biggest challenges was putting it together with ZERO POUNDS. They had to draw on a network of people that they’d met and worked with and who, very generously, offered their time and expertise.”
Zayneb, though, saw the value in what they were trying to achieve.
“For me, the best thing about it was the platform they offered to all the participants. I saw students’ confidence in themselves and their writing grow before my eyes and I was delighted by the buzz around the event and afterwards.”
And was Zayneb tempted to join in? Not this time.
“But not because I don’t want to perform – it’s because it was a day for students to discover what they could do. As a tutor, you hope that by the end of the module or year or degree, your students don’t need you anymore. You want them to strike out on their own. That’s what I saw that day. I was delighted to be completely superfluous to requirements.”
Jade and Ciaran were also keen simply to provide a platform for new performers, although they were very willing to give the poets-in-waiting – a mixture of local sixth formers, coursemates, and students from other universities – the benefit of their own experiences.
“The whole point of this is to put people on a stage who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity. People who maybe have never heard of slam poetry before, or schools that might not follow the mainstream,” explains Jade.
Once upon a time, that person was Jade. Without her own introduction to the world of poetry her life could have been very, very different:
“I was a very angry kid, a very violent kid. And ultimately, writing probably saved me from that life that I was heading towards. I was writing poetry privately. I was about 14, I was going to join the army, get a real job. Somebody I knew saw an advert for a writers’ retreat for young people in my area in the summer holidays. I just applied on a whim, got a spot. It was a week of intense workshops with four professional poets. I joined a poetry collective, did my first performance a week after that and then through that event I was asked to go and compete at Uni Slam in the youth showcase. I did that for two years and then picked it up again when I came [to Edge Hill] and competed in the proper slam. I completely changed my whole career plan.”
And rather than a strictly literary event, Jade sees her poetry slam as more of an opportunity for young people to develop confidence, spread their creative wings…and hopefully fly. Where to, nobody knows, least of all Jade:
“Even if you don’t want to be a performance poet, even if you don’t want to be a performer, if you’re a writer, even if you write fiction or scripts or anything really, if you publish your work, somebody is going to ask you to read that out. It’s a really important skill, presentations in offices. Being able to embody confidence and speak out loud in front of people is super important. And I think slam poetry is a really extreme way of teaching people that skill.”
Jade and Ciaran became friends as undergraduates, before Jade drawing Ciaran into her secret world of slam, eventually competing together at UniSlam. They didn’t place, but as we’ve identified, beyond the razzmatazz of competition, it’s really about confidence, creativity, stretching yourself, maybe even finding yourself a little bit.
“As a poet, I have power. That’s how I perform, with power. I’m also what’s called a sound poet, so I’m focusing on rhythm and beat. That’s where I excel, really. I do comedic poetry, I do political poetry. I really like personal poetry without it being in-your-face about life. I really like the way that rhythm works in poetry. Even if you put it into music or into rap, it wouldn’t have the same effect as using rhythm effectively in a slam poem. So that’s sort of my niche.”
Perhaps drawing on instincts that initially drew Jade to a life in the army, she workshopped the team to within an inch of their lives. Jade does a lot of workshops, it’s something she herself benefited from. She sees it as a kind of duty to pass on the slam torch, handing out tips and observations, just to help debutant performers tiptoe out of their comfort zones:
“When I started performing, I was really bad. I would go bright red, and my voice would shake, and my hands would shake, and I’d move around a lot, and it was really distracting. I managed to get a one-on-one masterclass with [slam scene legend] Kat Francois, and I’ve had masterclasses with other poets and people. I’ve managed to develop those into my own practice of teaching, so I can now go through my little toolbox of exercises and figure out what people need.
“We had a student last year who couldn’t slow down no matter what we tried, just couldn’t consciously slow down. So I made her do a three-second pause between every word, which she hated me for, but it worked. It’s a way of tricking your brain into being more aware of what your voice is doing.”
Ciaran started to find his own poetic identity in pre-comp workshops:
“We started off trying to make me be serious, and I’m not generally a very serious person in life. So we just went, ‘why don’t we try just talking and you talk?’ And we found a niche that worked for me, and the voice that I write with more naturally. [At UniSlam] I got asked to be the person who warms up the audience before the final. You haven’t been recognised by the competition, but you’ve been recognised by the judges and by the facilitators for your skill and for your performance. I did a poem called An Ode to Northern Women, which was a funny poem about all the women in my family who’ve been with me through my life. So I’m a funny poet. I write funny poems.”
Back at Jade and Ciaran’s event, writing and performance masterclass duties fall to slam champion Dave Viney and actor Eithne Browne. They put participants through their paces, encouraging and provoking, guiding and challenging, in order to help them find their own voices, and overcome those pesky nerves. And they come in all shapes and sizes. There’s the funny ones, the political ones, the romantic ones, the observational ones, the outrageous ones. There’s even the funny, political, romantic, observational, and outrageous ones. All voices are welcome. And, as mentioned at the top of the article, when the spotlight falls on the competitors, all are hugely impressive.
“It was a really fun day, and so positive and affirming for everyone who joined in,” says Zayneb Allak. “Jade and Ciaran pulled it off brilliantly. The whole thing went very smoothly in terms of organisation. I didn’t doubt them for a minute. They’re so hardworking, committed and capable that I knew that it would be a success. They’re just great people that I’m proud to know.”
Forget your concerns about Generation Z, AI, the death of creativity, and wasted lives perpetually doom-scrolling. These fresh, unique, brave, articulate voices – inspired and encouraged by young people like Jade and Ciaran – are tomorrow’s thought leaders, generational spokespeople and creative souls. Sounds like a slam-dunk.
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“I don’t really enjoy poetry on a page,” admits Jade. “I think that poetry should be spoken. I really like American-influenced spoken word poetry. The climate for spoken word in America is very different to here. It’s just brilliant. They take it so seriously, it’s a real artform. I love Blythe Baird as well, a similar American poet. She wrote a poem called Pocket Sized Feminism. That’s the one that really got me hooked on poetry. And my favourite ever is Olivia Gatwood. She wrote a poem called Ode to My Bitch Face, and that’s where I took some of my style from. That idea that I own the stage, and you’re going to listen to me because I own it.”
“Sylvia Plath is my favourite poet,” says Ciaran. “It was my first exposure to reading poetry off my own back, I think. I got to A level and had to pick a poet to write about. And when all the other poets I knew were people that we’d already studied, or were going to be in my exams, so I can’t write about them again. So I went, I’ll find someone a bit newer than that and then found Sylvia Plath through that research and just really loved language in the way that she uses it. I think she’s got such a beautiful knowledge of words. In terms of performance, we went to watch Harry Baker, who headlined UniSlam, and was brilliant, does funny poetry, does serious poetry tinted with funny. Just a really lovely performer and great stage presence.”
Find out more about Creative Writing at Edge Hill University
October 29, 2025
