Northcote High School Newsletter

Poetry from page to stage

Writing to speak up and out!

 

Our Year 8 students ended term one with a Poetry Slam. Just like (and unlike) a grand slam, a poetry slam is a competition where people read an original poem out loud! This competition completed an excellent term of learning about poetry from the page to the stage!  All the poems studied were written by contemporary Australian poets including Ellen Van Neervan, Claire Coleman, Maryam Azam, Sara Salah and more.  Many of the poems explored issues of identity, community, culture and inclusion. 

 

We were then thrilled to welcome spoken word artists Scotty Wings, Alicia Sometimes and Emilie Zooey Baker into our school as poets-in-residence.  Our poet masters worked with all Year 8s to support their writing and performing of an original poem.  In Year 8 our theme is ‘Challenge’, so many of our Year 8s wrote to speak up about issues confronting them today.  The treatment of women in society was a particularly salient theme, as was women’s participation in sport, climate change, identity politics, body image, racism, black holes and political unrest.  A poem titled, The Snape Debate provided some clever insights into this complex character and welcome laughter! 

 

Class workshop with Alicia Sometimes
Class workshop with Scotty Wings
Class workshop with Alicia Sometimes
Class workshop with Scotty Wings

 

The calibre of the poetry was beyond incredible. The attentiveness and support of the Year 8 audience was commendable too.  Poetry is powerful. 

 

Lee performing
'Sexist Society'
'Afraid of the Dark'
The judges deliberating
Shakespeare or rap? audience participation
The winning performance poets
Lee performing
'Sexist Society'
'Afraid of the Dark'
The judges deliberating
Shakespeare or rap? audience participation
The winning performance poets

 

Shout out to our winners:

  1. Lee Pennefather (8M) for What would you say? (A beautiful and brave poem about the issue of identifying as gender non-binary)
  2. Eve Feng (8G) untitled (a powerful poem about her personal response to the Hong Kong protests while being in lockdown in Melbourne)
  3. Zoe Panagiotopolous, Lily Sibillin, Elena Cooke and Jay Ryan(8M) for Sexist Society (yes, we’re in it!)

A thank you to our Year 11 judges (past Out Loud Poetry people and performance poetry enthusiasts) Ivy Hinkley, Emma Salmon, Mila Lawson, Will Grage-Perry, Dash Hosking and Sami Stanislawski.

Special mention to Matilda Hale, Bella Henderson, Jade Williams and Indigo Rodger (8A) for their poem Tell me why? about women in sport that was recorded for Alicia Sometimes’ ABC radio podcast Outer Sanctum - an all-female AFLM and AFLW chat done differently (https://www.outersanctum.com.au/). 

 

Northcote High School, we are writing to speak up and out! 

 

Rebekah Keenan Mount

Head of English