This afternoon was a first for me - an 'open mike' (no mike but you get the idea) poetry slam... a gathering of people who write and share their poetry from novices to established and published via competent and professionally trained plus a lot more besides.  Alliteration, adjectives, free form, sonnet, rhyming and rhythm... you name it, they shared it.

So being asked to occupy the seat of 'Judge 3' was pretty scary - what do I know about poetry, how to judge it technically or performancely (my invented word of the day) or anything else.  Thank goodness for Judges 1 and 2 who at least have a background in English beyond 'O' level (even if Mrs B did teach us to 'A' level standard at the time).

It was a wonderful afternoon, and a very worthy winner, someone fairly new to writing poetry who was genuinely gob-smacked when his name was called.  Two wonderful poems, one skillfully interwining the singing - yes singing - lines from 'Hail Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea' with deeply moving reflections of standing in a (fisherman's?) chapel;the second a short, vulnerable, beautiful reflection on a child born by caesarean section.  Wonderful!

The diversity and quality of the poetry was outstanding, the vulnerbality of most readers touching and palpable, the subjects intriguing (though one or two I didn't 'get').  I love listening to poetry, and enjoy the odd dabble in writing freefrom stuff or bits of humorous doggerel, but this was way out of my league!

Great fun.