Welcome to another post on my blog. Today, I completed another activity for the Creative Writing unit in English. This activity is about Slam Poetry. What we had to do was watch three or more videos of the previous New Zealand Slam Poetry champions.
The Slam Poetry task was:
Which was your favourite performance? Why?
Write two thoughtful opinions about your favourite piece and support these opinions with specific evidence (quotes) from the text (at least 2) in your discussion.
Out of the videos I watched, I liked the video from Sam Stokes named 'Place To Be'. This was New Zealand's 2014 National Poetry Slam Champion.
Ben Stokes explains about New Zealand as a Place To Be. He talks about the positive things about New Zealand and the Māori tribe, "warrior tribes we run through our veins on the inside". The history, Maui capturing the sun "fear the fire the first men stole from the sun". War, stating about the ANZACs and World War 1, how New Zealand bled for their spot in the world, "between the Aegean and the Black Sea we made an ally out of an old enemy this nation bled for its place in the world willingly as the Turk baptised in fire" and "great-grandparents who died on the beaches of Gallipoli against machine guns". Also, the tragic events which occurred, talking about the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, "our army as students with spades in Christchurch Cathedral". This slam poetry mixes the tradition, history, and New Zealand in brief and who we are as New Zealanders, which turns back to the title, well, it is really a Place To Be.
