Australian Poetry Slam Orange Heat Winners

Congratulations to all who took part. It was an incredible battle of words and poems, raps and raves last night as 12 entrants battled it out for a chance to compete in the NSW State Final for the Australian Poetry Slam 08. The theatre sport type entertainment included lots of audience participation as host Miles Merrill had everyone making noises and laughing at his observations on life and judges had fun scoring. Jacob Young stunned all with his autobiographical rap, Amy Johnson amazed everyone with her maturity shown in the poem “The Issue”. Jeanette Pennings performed a poem about “A Moment” in a busy day, while Zac Wells described “A Winter's Day”. Maggie Rosso almost had it won with a topical poem about “Retirement” while crowd favourite seven-year-old Phoebe Wells, took out third place with her thoughts on “Spring”. The audience was moved to tears with Tony Owen dedicating his “Holding onto Dreams” poem to his late wife Debbie Owen who was one of the winners in last year's heat. And Amy Harrison impressed with her views on life while Maddison Wells skillfully described a Volcano and Rachel Suringa was dynamic with her performance of “The Flame”. The winners were Shannon Elliott, of Canowindra, with is his energetic rap called “Self Acceptance”  about life and Josh Simpson, of Bathurst, with a moving poem about poetry. They both go on to perform on 21 November at the State Library of NSW with accommodation and flights sponsored by the Orange Regional Arts Foundation.

Here are the winners Shannon Elliott and Josh Simpson with host Miles Merrill:

And here are the entrants: