A team from Ramsey Grammar School scooped the overall winners spot in this year’s One World Poetry Slam with their poem Life for a Girl, exploring the lack of access to education and the unequal rights endured by women in some parts of the world and appealing for change.
Teams from Castle Rushen took second and third place with poems entitled Is This The World You Want? and P.E.P. Talk, both about climate change.
The difficult task of judging the finalists fell to a distinguished panel of poets and educationalists including Dr Jennifer Kewley-Draskau, Karen Riordan, the One World Centre’s Sarah Comish and Janet Lees who also gave a reading of some of her own works. Judging criteria included the interpretation of content and theme, the imaginative use of words and expressive verse, rhythm and imager, memorisation and overall delivery.
All the teams were praised by the judges for their careful crafting of their poems – and for their bravery in standing up in front of an audience and performing without notes!
The Poetry Slam competition, which runs annually with the support of the Isle of Man Government’s Development Education and Awareness Raising Grant, helps students not only to express themselves but to start to grapple with some of the world’s bigger problems, using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a starting point in their research. They are challenged to consider projects, individuals and communities that have changed people’s lives and/or the environment for the better. Congratulations to all those who took part.