Hammer & Tongue National Slam Final 2013 @ Wilton’s Music Hall, Sat 8th June. 2:30-10:30pm

This year’s slam final promises to be bigger and better than ever before. Winners and runners-up from across the Hammer & Tongue regions will be joined by slam winners from Cheltenham UK All Stars, Swindon Literature Festival and Bang Said the Gun in London and in Manchester to create as comprehensive as possible National Poetry Slam.

The venue is once again, Wilton’s Music Hall – the world’s oldest surviving music hall, home to cabaret, musicals and music hall and now slam poetry. Highlights from last year’s event, curtesy of Rob Blake:

Tickets are £15/12 in advance or £16.50 on the door. Last year it was sold out and people were turned away, so book them online asap! Tickets get you entry for the whole day so you can come and go as you please http://wiltons.org.uk/event.php?p=591

2:30 – 5:30 Team Slam

Brighton:

Rosy Carrick – Candid, eccentric, acidic, witty bullshitter.

Mike Parker – Big, booming, brethrenblessing wildwonderman MJP

Chris Parkinson – Compulsive poetical agitator & genius fisherman

Spliff Richard – Rapid rhyming rambling red-eyed rhetoric

Bristol:

Rebecca Tantony – Beautiful, life-affirming, iridescent, cheeky poems

Sally Jenkinson – Cider, boys, elephants, trains and northern skies

Anna Freeman – Funny, with a spine of genuine pain and humiliation

Jonny Fluffy Punk – Stand-up poet. Give-up guitarist. Sustainable Nihilist

Cambridge:

Fay Roberts: “Poet by night, projector by day.”

Hollie McNish: “Hollie likes poems to rhyme. Sorry.”

Leanne Moden: “Writer, poet, and troublemaker.”

Patrick Widdess: “Cambridge’s premier poetical polymath”

Camden:

Michelle Madsen: Bittersweet H&T Camden doyenne, haiku enthusiast

Matt Cummins: Not bad at penning self-deprecating poems

Poetcurious: Street poetry for humans on earth

Sophia Walker: diminutive yank firebrand

Hackney:

Angry Sam: The loveable poet thug

MC Angel: love for mics, love for life

Paula Varjack: Always *back* somewhere

Raymond Antrobus: poet and photographer, Hackney born and bred

Oxford

Tina Sederholm: oddly endearing satirical cakeaholic

Paul Askew:   I’m a man who writes poems.

Kate Walton – Let me tell you a story

Steve Larkin – H&T founder – the “spoken word guru”

Individual Slam Qualifier 6-7.30pm

Brenda Read-Browne (Swindon Literature Festival): Defying demographics
Dan Duke – (Cheltenham UK Allstars): pop-political poet
David Lee Morgan (Hackney): science, love and revolution
Dave Martin (Bang Said The Gun, London) Fudge Loving Old Skool Poetry Dude
Jackie O’Hagan (Bang Said the Gun, Manchester): Council-estate Rainbow Brite raised by hecklers
Jeremy Toombs (Bristol): Bearded Kentucky beat-blues man got soul
Kate Turner (Cambridge): Performer by choice, poet by accident.
Spliff Richard (Brighton) – Rapid rhyming rambling red-eyed rhetoric

Individual Slam Final Competition 8-10.30pm

Davy Mac (Oxford): Homeless Oratorio Poet & Professional Nomad
Mel Jones (Camden) : Filthy words from a clever bird
Poet Curious (Hackney): Street poetry for humans on earth
Stephen Morrison-Burke (Cambridge): Peeping Tom or just very observant?
Steve Duncan (Bristol): Thought-provoking passion about human society
Tommy Sissons (Brighton)- Deftly delivered incisive hip hop poetry
Richard Frost (Oxford) – brilliant Barnsley bard
+4 from Qualifiers.