- By Amy Birchall

In the ordinary world, poetry isn’t the real winner. My poetry lecturer frequently laments the fact that Tim Winton outsells him 500 to one, and most aspiring poets would find it difficult to convince their neighbours to switch off the television and listen to a spoken word performance instead.

Most aspiring poets’ neighbours don’t know what they’re missing.

The final event of Canberra’s You Are Here festival brought together the capital’s finest spoken word poets for an afternoon to prove that yes, poetry can be the real winner.

Poetry slams aren’t a more cultured version of the rap battles in movies like 8 Mile, as some (me) may have been anticipating. They’re poetry readings, but with more attitude than the ones you encountered in high school.

At Poetry Is The Real Winner (the brainchild of slam poetry family patriarchs Andrew Galan from BAD! SLAM! NO! BISCUIT! and Julian Fleetwood from Traverse Poetry) the audience was treated to poems about the city of Cocksville, sex with Lego and talking breakfasts.

Raphael was the star of the afternoon. His poems had depth that defied his youthful appearance, including a haunting but brilliant poem about the night that Canberra burnt down and “we didn’t notice because we were in the Phoenix reading poetry”.  There is nothing like hearing about the silver goon bag in Garema Place shaking off its blanket of homeless people and soaring into to the sky while those odd metal sheep statues outside the Canberra Centre Subway come to life.

The audience loved Malcolm’s piece about poets and authors in a mock-horse race, read in horse racing commentary style. He also performed a very sweet, longing poem about the class divide in Canberra and sneaking glances at upper class women on Murray’s buses.
The lack of female performers was a little disappointing. Surely there are more lady performance poets in the nation’s capital than the sole female poet, Ali McGregor? Her poems, particularly her piece on why solace trumps hope, were strong and heartfelt, but it would have been lovely to see some more girls on stage too.

It was heartening to see that poetry can exist (and thrive, judging by the packed Phoenix bar) outside of classrooms and musty textbooks. It’s events like these that will help your bogan neighbours to come around to the idea that poetry can be the real winner, as long as they’re back in their lounge room before Home and Away starts.