Welcome

This year’s slam final took place on Saturday 20th April, welcoming the top 100 finalists to perform their poetry live.

Firstly I would like to thank everyone who turned up to the slam. It was amazing to see so many family members and friends that came along to show their support - the turnout was excellent.

We kicked off this year’s slam with the under 18 finalists who were split into two categories, 14 and under and 15 and over. Every finalist showed great confidence and the love for poetry shone through in their pieces and blew the judges and audience away.

The judges had the hard task of picking just one winner from each category. After a tough decision they finally chose Olivia Rix with her poem ‘The Old Oak's Smile’ as the under 14 slam champion and Thomas Marshall with his poem ‘Picked Too Soon’ as the 15 and over champion. Both champions won a top of the range laptop!

The evening session welcomed the over 18 finalists. The range of topics and poetry styles was amazing and was a pleasure to watch and be part of. Mark Grist and the judges were all highly impressed with the standard of poetry and the support that was given for all finalists.

After a long deliberation the winners were chosen. 3rd place went to Em Fleming with her poem ‘Apologies To AA Milne’, 2nd place went to Kevin McMahon with ‘The Haunting’ and our Poetry Rivals 2012 slam champion was Gerry Miller with his fantastic and moving poem ‘The Kiss’.

Gerry had the choice of either a publishing contract with Bonacia Ltd or £1,000, and after a long think Gerry chose to take the £1,000 prize! Winner pages will soon be uploaded on to our website so make sure you take a look at this year’s winning poems and read about each winner’s experience of Poetry Rivals.