“It was like the stars aligned,” she says,“I just knew I was on the right track and exactly where I was meant to be.”
Maddison Newman recites poetry at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith.Wolter Peeters
spans nine suburbs across western Sydney including Penrith,Blacktown and Parramatta,with more than 50 participants. They have the opportunity to workshop their poems with prominent international spoken word artists like Francisco,Safia El Hillo and Nate Marshall.
The rules of slam poetry are simple:performers have three minutes to deliver an original work. Five audience members are randomly chosen to rate the performances,but no matter the scores,the audience is reliably supportive and welcoming to everyone who takes the stage.
The stories are raw and real. Some are seasoned performers who have attended slam for years,while others are fresh faces joining part of a growing community that is re-building itself following the COVID-19 lockdowns.
The festival is organised by the popular Bankstown Poetry Slam,which has drawn an increasingly diverse audience from across the city since it started in 2013.
“Poetry is a lot more of the nitty,gritty,dirty stuff that we wouldn’t normally want to share.”
Maddison Newman
Aishah Ali,23,who has attended the Bankstown slams since 2015,says she has recently seen more attendees from the northern suburbs. “It’s just a very authentic and warm place to be entertained,” she says. “It’s very open and accessible and welcoming,people enjoy sitting in that room.”
The range,breadth and depth of poetry performed during each slam is as diverse as the audience. Around western Sydney,nearly 50 per cent of people speak a language other than English at home,and the flexibility and lack of grammar rules in poetry let budding writers explore their voices by breaking the rules of standard English.
Newman finds the form liberating. “In reality,poetry does not need to be complicated,” she says.
“Poetry doesn’t have to rhyme. It doesn’t have to use big fancy metaphors. Spoken word poetry is a good way to realise that poetry doesn’t have to fit in this neat little box. It can literally be whatever the hell you believe it needs to be.”
Sue Rifi at the Brave New Word poetry festival.Wolter Peeters
Poets often say being on stage allows them to express themselves and show vulnerability they would otherwise keep hidden. “A lot of the time they are ugly feelings,” says Newman. “Poetry is a lot more of the nitty,gritty,dirty stuff that we wouldn’t normally want to share.”
Leila Mansour grew up in France and studied English as her second language. She came to Australia seven years ago to study medicine and was introduced to the poetry slam scene by a friend.
“Languages also come with structure and there’s culture behind the language,” Mansour says. “The way I learnt to write is in French,so my poetry in English is the way you would write poetry in French.”
Newman and Mansour began their creative journeys in theatre and fiction writing,respectively,but were both drawn to slam poetry and the Bankstown community for the opportunity to connect and interact directly with their audience.
“While I enjoyed performing in school,the difference is that I was always playing someone else,” Newman says. “It’s very different to performing your own poetry because that’s a very vulnerable part of you.”
The warmth and connection extend beyond the three minutes the poets spend on stage. Mansour says it’s difficult to describe the rapport a poet builds with their audience. “It’s such an easy connection with people that you wouldn’t have otherwise met,” she says.
Brave New Word runs until December 13.
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