Slamovision
The annual spoken word version of Eurovision, hosted by UNESCO Cities of Literature, where each City slams their way to the title of Slamovision Champion!
Slamovision 2023
On December 5th 2023, 12 UNESCO Cities of Literature put forward their finest selected slam poets to represent them in the Slamovision Grand Finale in Nottingham City of Literature.
Nottingham hosted another brilliant evening, and it was a joy to see such a range of poetry, plus local acts from Nottingham!
After a nail-biting series of scores, Manchester took the crown with Esther Koch’s poem Taurean at the Nightclub. Congratulations Manchester!
Top 4 Finish
Back in April we teamed up with our palls Spork! and Taking The Mic to put on City Slam, to find Exeter's Slam Champion who would represent us on an international stage.
The amazing Jonah Corren travelled to Nottingham to perform live at the Grand Finale, and came fourth! We’re so proud of Jonah!
Jonah Corren
Hailing from West Dorset, Jonah Corren is a songwriter-poet. His poems have been published most recently by Violet Indigo Blue, etc, and in the After Sylvia anthology from Nine Arches Press. He is also a UniSlam champion (2019), Exeter City Slam Champion (2023) and an alumnus of BBC New Creatives (2019/20), Beatfreeks Artivists in Training (2020) and The Apples & Snakes Writing Room (2021). Jonah’s debut folk-rock EP, Dreaming and Petty Crime, was released in December 2020, and his spoken word and music single Borderlines, a collaboration with rapper and multi-instrumentalist Rowan Sawday (better known by his stage persona Dizraeli), was released in December 2021. He is now living in Plymouth, and is the organiser of local monthly poetry evening ‘POETRY@thePPL'.
Watch Along
We teamed up with Exeter Library to host a live watch party of the Grand Finale, streamed live from Nottingham. With free snacks and a soft drink bar and a ‘sacrificial’ performance from Ed Tripp, it was a wonderful gathering of local poetry fans all cheering Jonah on. As those scores were totting up, there was a lot of tension in the room! We can’t wait to do it all again next year!
Our pals Spork! had found two young poets - Cami and Reuben - who started the evening with absolutely phenomenal performances - the future of Exeter’s Slam scene is in safe hands if these two are anything to go by! Cami and Reuben will now also have mentoring sessions with Spork!, to learn more about the live poetry scene.
Slamovision 2022
Slamovision 2022 was hosted by Nottingham, and Exeter took part for the first time, represented by the wonderful Clare Morris, reigning Exeter Poetry Slam Champion! Earlier in the year we commissioned Clare to write a poem centred on Exeter or Devon, and we were so proud to see that poem on an international stage!
The live finale took place on Tuesday 6 December at Metronome Nottingham, an expertly produced evening in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University’s creative programme WRAP.
We travelled to Nottingham where Clare treated us to an incredible live performance of Devon Maid Walking. We could not be more proud of Clare, who netted a fantastic fourth place in our first ever Slamovision! Watch the stream (on the left) to see her performance!
Huge congratulations to Abiọ́dún (Abbey) Abdul on her amazing winning poem, retaining the Slamovision title for Nottingham!
Meet our 2022 Judges!
We assembled a team Exeter’s finest poetry experts to score the fantastic Slamovision entries from our fellow Cities of Literature!
Yaz Gooch
Yaz Gooch (they/them) is a Theatre Maker, Poet, Activist and student in Exeter. Their work within poetry and theatre features their experiences with gender, sexual and racial identity. They are also a co-director of 'SIT DOWN N SHUT UP', an organisation working to uplift and amplify marginalised voices in which their work has been recognised nationally.
Tim King
Tim King is a spoken word artist and event host, who performs regularly at open mics, poetry nights and festivals, both in the South West and further afield. Since 2011 Tim's commitment to supporting and developing emerging talent has been served by his stewardship of Taking the Mic: a monthly Open Access event at Exeter's Phoenix Arts Centre which he organises and hosts. Since 2012, Tim has also co-run the annual Exeter Poetry Festival Slam.
Ocean Tawiah
Ocean (she/they) is a Black British writer, and general lover of words, who has had the pleasure to explore her poetic voice in the vibrant Exonian poetry scene. She is a poet, student, bookseller, and facilitator of children's creative writing workshops. Her workshops focus on the exchange of literature from all over the world, with an emphasis on West African mythology, and they hope to use their career in the book industry to ensure children from global majority groups have access to books that they feel represented in.
Edward Tripp
Edward Tripp is a writer, performer & stand-up poet based in Devon. Strange, surreal & side-splittingly funny, his work combines words, high-drama, and occasional theatrical effects, to convey a range of deep esoteric truths. Edward was once described as ‘Dave Allen meets David Lynch’ and it pleased him.