I do this sort of thing quite a lot. Sometimes I get absolutely nowhere. Sometimes I get the audience completely on my side, and still get nowhere. Sometimes I get the audience on my side and the judges on my side, but end up just not quite managing to clinch it in the final. I know that lots of it is luck, but I also know that I need to raise my game to make the best of what luck I have. So, you'd have thought that by now I would have rehearsed my poems for tomorrow night at least a few dozen times. Well, you'd have thought that if you didn't know me.
It is ironic that one of the reasons I have not capitalised on my pole position in slam finals, according to a poet friend of mine, is that I don't appear to be "political". I do, in fact, have several poems which are of a political nature, but they tend to be either (a) not very good or (b) more stealthy or full-on funny than in-your-face earnest. This is my challenge for tonight: write two or three poems, preferably funny, at least one of which is overtly political. Wish me luck!
Yes, I sometimes use props and costumes...
For the sake of completeness, I ought to add that I didn't make the final on this occasion, despite a very topical poem and the debut of my alter ego Ernest Dogrel. Congratulations to Alan McGlas. However, I did manage to come third overall in the final of the Scottish Slam Championship at the Aye Write! book festival on 5 March.
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