Hammer & Tongue Slam featuring Stephen Morrison-Burke with support from Justina Kehinde

Order discount advance tickets via Eventbrite: http://htcnovember13-efbevent.eventbrite.co.uk
Time for the next open round of the Cambridge Hammer & Tongue 2013-14 season… Spoken word artistry and competitive mayhem. What more could you want?

This is your chance to become part of the spoken word slam brilliance that has graced this here fair city since 2009, in the warm and wonderful surroundings of fabulous venue The Fountain. Sign up as one of the eight to compete for a place in the Regional Final next September, or just dive in and soak up the atmosphere and talent on display. And some great beer.

Tickets are a silly £5 full price/ £3.50 concessions/ £2 for slammers in advance and a frankly ludicrous £6.50/ £5/ £3 on the door. Doors are at 7:30pm; kick-off at 8pm. There’s also a bar upstairs… 😀

Stephen Morrison-Burke has been performing poetry for two and a half years now and in that time has won several poetry slam competitions, taught in schools, family centres and prisons, and have been fortunate enough to support internationally renowned acts such as Mark Gonzales, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Buddy Wakefield. Last year he won the Hammer & Tongue Cambridge Slam Final and two weeks later was named Birmingham Poet Laureate 2012-13. In June of this year he performed at Central Hall, Westminster in front of 4,000 people and in the same month was named Hammer & Tongue National Slam Champion 2013-14.

To find out more, visit http://www.morrison-burke.com

And he’ll be supported by Justina Kehinde Ogun?eitan – a Cambridge University student with rare drive and vision. Second of twins, youngest of eight, passionate about justice and the world’s social state, Justina was the first runner-up in the Hammer & Tongue Cambridge Regional Final 2013. http://deathofthewriter.wordpress.com

Hosted by Fay Roberts, a Cambridge-based poet, musician, and unrepentant geek.

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Fancy Slamming?

The rules for H&T slams are as follows:

Slammers are chosen at random from the sign-up list to perform – spoken word only, no music, no props. Each competitor has 3 minutes from the time they start talking on the mic. After 30 seconds’ grace period, they start losing points (1 point for every 10 seconds!). At the end, they’re given points out of 10 by 5 judges chosen from the audience, while the top and bottom scores are removed to ensure fairness. The slammer gets a score out of 30, and the competition moves on.

The winner of that evening’s competition goes through to the Regional Final (the Cambridge one tends to be held in September), and the winner (and runner-up) of the Regional Final goes through to the National Final. The winner of the National Final gets crowned H&T National Slam Champion and can then go on to compete in things like the Radio 4 slam championships, the international slam championships, etc.

Aspirant competitors can sign up either by rocking up as doors open on the night (typically 7:30pm for an 8pm start) or by booking slam tickets in advance online (£2 from Eventbrite – the relevant link is above). You can “express an interest” by emailing your name in advance, but that only gets you on the reserve list until you pay on the door (£3).

There are no limitations on style of poetry – a typical slam will see sonnets, blank verse, hip-hop, rhyming iambic pentametric couplets and more all cross the stage – and we’ve seen winners who’ve read their poems out from the written version (paper, kindle, phone, beermat) so, while there are advantages to learning your pieces off by heart, it’s not a requirement!

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