New Feature Announcement: Slam Poetry on the Spot

With so much going on right now, it may seem foolhardy of me to be announcing another feature, but that's exactly what this post is about (if you didn't already guess by the title). As my second new feature on this blog, I'm pleased to announce the first installment of Slam Poetry on the Spot will be up in the next week or two.

On my YouTube channel I have a playlist consisting of who I consider to be the best British slam poets working today. There is a thriving slam poetry scene in America where poets are doing lots of great things, and I have covered the topic of spoken word and performance poetry before. So, for the foreseeable future, I will be analysing a slam or spoken word poet and one of their poems (or several), looking for what makes them great at their work.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, then stick around and check it out. Seeing as I talk about written poetry quite a lot on this blog, it will be fun to discuss performance poetry again, especially as it appears to be taking off and growing into a larger community by the year. The first installment will be focusing on spoken word poet Suli Breaks, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, coming up next is my long awaited analysis of Owen Sheers' poem 'Mametz Wood'.

Hope you're all enjoying the summer, and see you again soon.

Trials of the Fennec

Desert sands hide many things.
The roots of heat-withered grass,
the coils of fierce-eyed vipers
and the prey of the Fennec.

A fox with satellite-dish ears,
its fur the colour of the sands,
a buccaneer of the dunes
on an endless trek.

Anything goes on the Fennec's palate.
Bird eggs, shelled treasure chests,
unwary rodents, luscious carveries,
scorpions, refreshing yet barbed cocktails.

Then there are the Fennec's foes,
the beasts which lurk by day and night.
The devious caracals, the fearsome hyenas,
even the death shadows of owls on the air.

And yet this little fox pressed on,
prowling the crest of the dunes
across the driest of oceans
on to find its bounty and a place to rest.