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Put your rhyme on the line! Slam with the best or cheer on with the rest

Performance poets from around the country will head to West Auckland over the next three weeks for the annual Going West Books and Writers Festival Poetry Slam.

Armed only with wits and words (all original), they will battle it out to be named Going West Poetry Slam 2011 champion.

This year the event is hosted by Going West Poetry Slam Mistress Sian Northfield and features four heats, a grand final plus special guests to add to the fun.

Two heats will be held on Saturday 27 August – at Waitakere Central Library, Henderson at 2pm, and Hardware Cafe, Titirangi at 8pm. For this second heat we are joined by spoken word luminary Shane Hollands and musician John McNab (Freaky Meat).

Heat number three will take place on Wednesday 31 August at the Library Bar in Auckland City in conjunction with Printable Reality as part of LIVE at the Library Bar and promises a memorable night of poetry, music and sizzling competition. Special guests Gerry Roodekerk, Alexandra Fraser and a secret international star will feature and the Poetry Slam begins at 9.30pm (registration at 7pm).

The fourth heat and Grand Final is at Titirangi War Memorial Hall on Saturday 3 September from 7pm and will also feature Auckland performance poetry band Freaky Meat.

With a cash prize purse of $800, the Going West Poetry Slam attracts entrants from around the country.

For more information on the rules for entering the Going West Poetry Slam, visit www.goingwest.co.nz or phone Sian Northfield on 021 803 108 or email sianshine@gmail.com.

The Going West Poetry Slam is a feature event of the Going West Books and Writers Festival held in West Auckland until the end of September and featuring a range of events including a season of Raising The Titanics at Glen Eden Playhouse Theatre from Thursday 25 August, A Night with David Eggleton on Friday 2 September at Hardware Cafe, the Book Market on Saturday 3 September at Titirangi Hall, the Going West Books and Writers Weekend ‘Landfall in Unknown Seas’ on 10 and 11 September, and Storyfest on Saturday 24 September.

Going West Books and Writers Festival is part of the nationwide REAL New Zealand Festival which celebrates New Zealand during Rugby World Cup 2011.

The 2011 Going West Poetry Slam features a new MC - Sian Northfield.

Sian Northfield likes being a celebrant, a teacher, a researcher, writer, mother, gym bunny, and she also likes the colour yellow but she can’t wear it as it makes her look jaundiced... or is that because she likes wine too.  Sian’s attempts to grow potatoes make a strangely synchronistic analogy for her life. She can draw comparisons between the preparation of the soil and her work as a celebrant, with all that nurturing of the insides and the layering of goodness.

She thinks she is pretty good at writing which is why she has never really done it... or told anyone about it because she doesn’t want to find out that she sucks. She can appreciate other peoples poetry though and feels a huge amount of admiration for people that write their poems sans dubious enhancement and have the @#$%^ to perform them.

Sian tending her potato patch ponders

The notches in her belt

The strings in her bow

Which hat for witch day

Celebrant, presenter, teacher, writer

master of ceremonies Jack of pun.

I am a mother a lover and a fighter.

But

It seems the river still flows under bridges burnt or built

She tests the current and the past,

Tightening her belt

Dips in and swims

This year the Poetry Slam is also fortunate to have a Poetry consultant to assist with the judging and give general advice.

The role has been taken up by Kiri Piahana-Wong a poet, editor, writer, and publisher, who also pays the bills through variously arts events management, MC-ing, legal advocacy, policy analyst work, consulting, performance, teaching, and workshops, or, as she likes to say, 'doing shit that I love and making it pay my rent'. In recent times, Kiri’s main focus has been on her fledgling publishing company, ANAHERA Press, whose mission statement is to provide a publication platform for authors writing outside the mainstream. ANAHERA will be officially launching in late November 2011 with a chapbook of poetry by Doug Poole. See www.anahera.co.nz.