A melodious harmony of words, images, assonance, alliteration and rhyming patterns interweave in the beautiful speech of several individuals who have plucked up the courage to perform their poems in the bar at the ADC. The setting of the ADC bar is cosy - arranged around the stage and set adjacent to the bar, where each individual poet will perform with the microphone. Fond memories of stand-up comedians in underground pubs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival reminisce in the back of my mind as, with a group of friends, we find a row and prepare ourselves for the poetry slam.

And a slam it was - definitely a night to be remembered. Featuring some stunningly poetic lines: "I am not soil for men to grow in…" alongside intruiging ideas of genetically-engineered spiders, able to give multiple hand-jobs. Or touching emotional topics of true tales from the Calais Jungle.... and sexy Santas, all combining in a very diverse evening of spoken word.

The evening began with an introduction from our host, the fun and friendly Freya Trevor-Harris, who announced the structure and rules of the evening, testing out the audience's clap-o-meter. Being my first experience of a spoken-word performance, never having seen poetry performed and certainly never watched a poetry slam before, this was very helpful and the structure was simple. Two feature poets - one at beginning, the other at the close; and up to eight participants.  Each participant had just three minutes to perform their written work that was then to be judged by the four volunteer judges, whose total scores would be tallied to give overall first, second and third place position winners.

"And a slam it was - definitely a night to be remembered"

With six poets altogether, we began the first half with three poets yet, due to encouragement in the atmosphere and a light-hearted aura of fun, an additional two sign-ups resulted in an extended second-half to the show. The environment certainly was supportive, as a sense of mutuality and openness was established by Freya's brilliant hosting, her own sharing of personal anecdotes and even a reading of her own poem on Pennsylvania.

"Listening to spoken-word for the first time, I was so drawn into the sensibilities resonant in the sounds that echoed across the stage and surrounded the audience participants in an aura of understanding"

The first poet was the previous Speakeasy slam winner, Mary Flanagan, opening with five poems on the wide-ranging topics of emotion, mental health, love and feminism. Mary's performance was absolutely outstanding. Never before had I heard poetry spoken aloud. It achieves a different style and a distinctive rhythm which, when done well and with emotion, can reach something immensely personal inside, calling to an individual's response and compelling their relatability to words written by another. The feeling was so powerful as, listening to spoken-word for the first time, aloud, I was so drawn into the sensibilities resonant in the sounds that echoed across the stage and surrounded the audience participants in an aura of understanding, of emotions, of mutuality of feeling. It made me wonder quite how another could so perfectly articulate thoughts and feelings that I had too. 

"Never before had I heard poetry spoken aloud. It achieves a different style and a distinctive rhythm which, when done well and with emotion, can reach something immensely personal inside..."

The next three poets performed, then an interval. The interval was short and sweet, no unnecessary procrastination but just enough time in the allotted seven minutes to grab a drink from the bar before the next five poets performed. Some experienced, some shy, some nervous and others humorous, but regardless, a great range of ideas emerged from their poems and the audience was quickly transported from emotive sympathising, to apprehensions of a dystopian future, to absolute hilarity and comic awakening.

Themes of lost love, suffering and true-life experiences contrasted with ideas of technological development, a world dominated in scientific revolution. Not only were the poems themselves imaginative, but performers also delivered with emotion. A particularly memorable performance was a personally-driven poem about the Calais Jungle, a young 14-year-old boy and his little brother - the winner of the slam. A well-delivered rendition of a very tear-jerking and emotional poem.

Review: Improv Actually

Finally, the night closed with the feature poet, Tom Denbigh. All the way from Bristol, Tom's performance was very witty and absolutely hilarious - the audience was in fits of laughter as he enacted each persona of his poem, whether it was a viral advert, or mother-earth, or a sexy Santa! A fantastic end to a really enjoyable evening, and hopefully my first of many Speakeasies to come