Sharp are the words that fall from their tongue, slicing through the air, through the ears of the audience and through the dogmas of practices that they seek to slam, till they are destroyed. Slam poetry may be new to India but the ones who bear it on their shoulders are old souls with a wisdom that comes from the jarring reality of our times. After taking Delhi by storm and discovering new talent whose videos have swept social media away, the Delhi Slam is all set to reach Bengaluru for the city’s very first slam poetry fiesta — the Verses PlayOff Festival on December 18 at The Humming Tree.
With performances by the legendary Alok-Vaid Menon, followed closely by the likes of songstress and spoken word wizard Zoya Mohan and the unforgiving and opinionated Shivani Gupta. Managed by the quiet genius of Saumya Choudhury, the Bengaluru leg of SlamIndia will see the first slam festival of this magnitude in the city. Saumya says, “I was working at the very famous Vancouver Slam when I realised that the amount of political and social chaos that India is in right now, it could really do with a space where poets could come forward and speak their mind. A slam entitles youth to speak of their situation in a personal sense in front of an audience which will accept them. So four months back we went national and Bengaluru is our second stop after Panjim. It’s really exciting to be selling out so fast.”
Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.
