City School

Tuesday 6th March saw Andrew and I wending our way to City School for a day in the plush surroundings of the school library in the brand new CLC building. We were greeted by some enthusiastic and talented writers who weren’t afraid to tackle controversial or sensitive subjects (the Hillsborough disaster, 10 ways to annoy the bus driver to name two) as well as some on trend offerings on spooky vampires and Facebook. There was even a hard to classify highly idiosyncratic missive on the subject of ‘paperclips!’ The final between 12 students from Mrs Hughes’ class pitting their wits against 12 from Ms Plant’s class with 0.2 points in it was too close to call and overall we had a really fantastic day; hopefully the 60 students who took part did too. Charlotte Ansell

Kate Tempest - 'The Teens Speech'

This is a poem by a great UK poet called Kate Tempest. She was 21 when she wrote this poem. Its about how young people are portrayed in the news, films and television. What do you think?

The History of Poetry Slam

Poetry Slam was started in 1984 in Chicago, U.S.A by a construction worker called Marc Smith. He thought that normal poetry readings were a bit boring and that although he loved poetry, a lot of the poetry he found in books he didn't like. So he started a poetry slam, where anyone could read their own poems and compete against each other for the highest score. He thought that the performance was as important as the writing. 

He thought that everyone has something to say and that poetry slam was a good chance for people to be able to hear it. Although there is a competition, its always very important to remember 'the points aren't the point, the point is the poetry'.

Poetry Slam has now spread all across the world, and is especially popular in America, the UK, Germany and Australia.

Welcome

Welcome to There Might Be Language. This is the official website of an exciting new slam poetry project running across schools in South Yorkshire. We're going to posting up examples of poems, tips on writing, editing and performance and all the information you'll need to start slamming.