Brave New Voices: teenage poets target HBO slam

An Irish poet is hoping to introduce a new generation of performance poets to an international audience in Atlanta, Georgia this summer.

Stephen Murray wants to bring a team of teenage poets from Ireland to the HBO-televised slam competition Brave New Voices in July. Murray ran a competition in 2014 through his school workshop programme that asked students to submit a poem for consideration. His blog received more than 5,000 entries, with the final broadcast on RTÉ's Arena last May.

The five chosen poets hoping to represent Ireland at the slam are Iobhar Stokes from Scoil na Tríonóide Naofa, Doon, Limerick; Lucy Fitzgerald from Bandon Grammar School in Cork; Neasa McCormack from Mary Immaculate, Lisdoonvarna; Ryan Mangan, a first-year science student at NUI Galway; and Melissa Kavanagh from Clondalkin, Dublin, who is in her first year of a psychology degree at Dublin City University.

A FundIt campaign, Brave New Voices Atlanta 2015, was set up last month, with Murray looking to raise €8,000 to pay for flights and accommodation for the team. The former Cúirt Grand Slam champion will accompany them to Atlanta as a manager, but will cover his own costs.

“It’s the biggest youth poetry slam in the world,” says Murray. “So it’s a huge deal. The team is really talented and getting them there would be an opportunity for a country famed for its poets to showcase its up-and-coming stars on the international stage.”

Set up in 1998 by the San Franciscan non-profit organisation Youth Speaks, the Brave New Voices event is open to emerging performance poets from the ages of 13 to 19. Growing from an inaugural participation of four teams, last year’s event saw more than 50 teams compete.

Participants came from all over America and as far away as Cape Town, South Africa. Backed by the producer and director Stan Lathan, the finals of the slam have been broadcast on HBO since 2008, giving the form and its contestants access to a huge international audience.

Murray says the idea to send an Irish team to the event came from the workshops he’s been running for secondary school students across the country since 2007. Mentoring in the region of 30,000 teenagers to date through his Brave New Words workshops, he says the response to slamming has been very positive.

“The kids really respond to this type of poetry. We’ve had a lot of serious stuff, from bullying, to suicide issues in a few cases, be aired through the workshops. I encourage them to write about issues that affect them. That might be mental health, or sexuality, bullying, self-image, or even the burden of ambition. What I’ve seen in the workshops is that they really pour their hearts out. It’s a way for them to communicate, but also to use their imagination and create.”

Ryan Mangan, a team member who is also helping to manage the fundraising efforts, says writing and performing has offered him an outlet to deal with issues he found hard to talk about: "Had I never discovered performance poetry, I'd never have put my poem Suicide Awareness out there. To think I've come from being embarrassed about my own depression to sharing my poem about the issue with over 50,000 people [at the Arena final] is amazing."

If the team does get funding, Mangan says there are a few big names he'll be watching out for: "Russell Simmons, the presenter of America's Got Talent, is also the presenter of Brave New Voices on HBO. If we get to the stage of meeting him, I'd be overwhelmed."

Team Ireland would perform together in one competition, but also compete individually, where it might be easier to progress to the finals. “The contest consists of five rounds in both the team and individual competitions, so 10 pieces in total,” says Melissa Kavanagh, another team member and manager. “Since we’re a newly formed team, all our team pieces will be new material. As for the individual competition, I’d like to mix old and new material together.”

Kavanagh began writing poetry at 16 while in Transition Year. “I’m now 19 and a first year in DCU,” she says. “There have been plenty of experiences along the way that have really influenced me both as a person and as a poet, so it’s a case of figuring out which pieces would best represent a young person in Ireland on the global stage. I’m really excited about the competition. I’ve seen many of the poets that compete there on YouTube and their work is the bar for slam poets to reach. To be on stage alongside them would be an incredible learning experience.”

While Kavanagh and Mangan are both in college, the other three members are in fifth or sixth year in secondary school. Fifth-year student Neasa McCormack, who got into slamming through YouTube, manages to juggle studying for exams with her poetry. “Writing is something I love to do, so it’s like a hobby,” she says. “I write to relax, or when I’m bored, it’s just something I love to do and would always make time for.”

The event would be McCormack’s first time in America, so she is understandably excited at the prospect. “The thing I’d look forward to most is meeting people,” she says. “The people I’ve met so far through this competition are some of the nicest people I’ve ever come across. I’m more excited than nervous. I’m sure the nerves will kick in closer to the event, but now I’m more focused on writing and getting the performance nailed.”

As a multi-award winning slammer, Murray is helping the team put together their pieces in monthly meetings. In his own poetry, he now favours the written form, after a well-received debut collection, House of Bees, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2011. A second collection, On Corkscrew Hill, will be published later this year. Murray's interest and knowledge of the international slamming circuit still remains strong, however. He thinks the Irish performance poetry scene compares favourably to its American counterpart.

“There are certain differences in terms of subject or theme,” he says. “Racial identity and religion would be big topics in America, and you’d see hip-hop influences in the performance aspect. American slamming can be quite preachy and politically correct at times. We’ve a different rhythm in Ireland. The Irish scene has more traditional poetry at its core. Poems seem to focus more on mental health issues, identity issues and themes of addiction.”

In addition to the FundIt campaign, Team Ireland is seeking corporate sponsorship for the event. “Social media companies or tech companies would be a great fit,” says Murray. “In many ways, they’ve resulted in a decline of the spoken word and it would be nice to see them promote it. The team are great and what’s got them here is that they haven’t been afraid to express their vulnerability. It’s really brave. That’s the thing about a slam - you take your vulnerability and you turn around and show it to other people. You’re no longer on your own with it.”

For more information, or to help fund the project, visit: fundit.ie/project/brave-new-voices-atlanta-2015