ON March 2, the winners of the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport’s National Poetry Slam will be chosen.

Spoken word poets, performance poets, and other interested persons were last month asked to enter the competition which will be held on the lawns of Castellani House, Georgetown beginning at 20:00 hrs.

This year, the themes for the competition are: ‘Guyana, Our Country, Our Home’, ‘Mental Health Issues’, ‘For the love of Humanity’, ‘Guyanese Patriotism or Praise of Country, Youths on Social Issues’, and ‘The Elimination of Social Ills.’

Franale Holder, the coordinator of the 2023 leg of the competition had stated that the aim of the event was to bring attention to some of the talent that exists locally.

She had said that such a competition would highlight the fact that Guyana has great writers who are deeply expressive and are able to articulate themselves in a very dramatic manner.

Holder added that the purpose of this is to encourage the creatives to do what they do best, which is to write dramatic pieces or to simply do slam poetry in general.

This year, the first place winner will walk away with $200,000, while those coming in second, third and fourth will get $150,000, $100,000 and $50,000 respectively.

On March 2, the winners will be determined from the 15 finalists after they would have performed the piece they had submitted for the audience.

See the flyer below for more information.