OutLoud Teen Poetry Slam winners

2017 OutLoud Poetry Slam – winners 2 years running!

Congratulations to performers with support from Ms Catherine Gallus:

• Cas Lee
• Victoria Benson-Heap
• Vincent Sok Lim
• Kai Palihawadana

JMSS is frequently known to excel in all types of science and mathematics-related activities, but one thing that we may surprise others with is our competence in a poetry slam competition.

Poetry slam is basically performance poetry, where performers recite pre-made poems. The performance was 2 minutes in duration and there were many topics covered such as stereotyping, politics, society attitudes and climate change.

Our 2016 topic was on the stereotyping of people. We touched on society’s expectations and assumptions of people who are white, brown, Muslim and Asian.

On 15th August 2016 JMSS competed against 15 schools at State Library of Victoria. Some schools participating were: Viewbank College, Melbourne High School, University High School, and Huntingtower School to name a few.

John Monash Science School was 1 of 5 schools to qualify for the finals. This is a huge achievement, having only 5 or so weeks to write and recite the poem.

The finals were held on 30th August at Deakin Edge, Federation Square, at Melbourne Writers’ Festival, a very popular and prestigious event that is attended by various writers from all around Victoria. JMSS were announced winners, prompting this tweet from Melbourne City of Literature @MelCityofLit: Reasons we are a UNESCO City of Literature – NO 589: A science specialist high school wins #outloud16 @MelbWritersFest Happy #MelbourneDay.

I would like to say a huge thank you to Ms Bourke and Mr Chisholm, without whom our appearance in this competition would not have occurred. A big thank you, also, to all of the students who attended meetings, helped write, edit and finalise the poem (there are too many to name), and of course thank you and congratulations to the performers: Zahrah Ahmad, Yijie Neo, Kithmi Ranasinghe and Nicholas Chryssafis.

Hear the poem and radio interview on 102.7FM RRR Multi-Storied – 7th September 2016, interview at 1:35:26 on playback.

http://ondemand.rrr.org.au/grid/201609071200