The U20 Poetry Slam
Our U20 Poetry Slam has been held several times since 2017 and it is impossible to imagine our city and the region without it. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, it is the only regular poetry slam for young poets under 20. The texts are publicly performed by the young people at one of these poetry slams and judged by the audience.
The Landesverband Soziokultur MV supports the project since 2019 year by covering the costs of advertising materials for the events, the St.Spiritus provides as a co-organizer rooms, technology and technicians.
The actor and theater pedagogue Christian Holm
Christian Holm is known for his outstanding and nationally award-winning theater projects with young people. He also initiated the “U20 Poetry Slam” in 2017 with a weekly writing workshop, which has already taken place eight times at St.Spiritus. Christian Holm carries out these events on a voluntary basis and with great passion. In our opinion, they contribute greatly to the young people’s confrontation with themselves as part of society and their own attitude. Now the great the texts of the young people are recorded in book form.
The book for the U20 Poetry Slam!
A book by young people for young people!
Ultimately, the standstill in the Corona crisis made this book possible: suddenly there was time to collect texts, apply for the necessary funds, do editorial work, coordinate with the graphic designer and find a regional printer.
The result of this collective work is immediately available in stores!
The poetry slam for young poets at St. Spiritus has existed since 2017, is unique in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and has long been an integral part of Greifswald. For the book edition, Christian Holm has compiled 54 texts by 17 local poets, and Cindy Schmidt has magnificently illustrated the texts. The book was published and financed by the state association for socioculture, the federal program “Demkratie leben” (Living Democracy) and the state parliamentary group Die Linke.
“The one who gave the one who picked the thistles a basket or fries for brains!”
Collected texts from the Greifswald U20 Poetry Slam
110 pages, 5 Euro, available in Greifswald bookstores and at St.Spiritus
The U20 Poetry Slam and Writing Workshop:
Adolescents are very much moved by many issues – the change of their own person, the confrontation in the family, with friends, the opposite sex, everyday school life, the possibility space of a life, social developments, visions of the future, etc.Adolescence is a time of serious changes and a special perception of oneself and one’s environment, intense feelings and the development of a moral or political attitude.Some adolescents find an expression in artistic media to reflect their issues and questions in a special way that goes further than the rational way.
For example, in the voluntary writing workshop with actor and theater pedagogue Christian Holm, young people are instructed in writing their own texts and poems. Christian Holm stimulates, conveys approaches and techniques, but he also picks up the young people where they are on their artistic path and promotes their own style. They find an expression and deal with language and its possibilities in a completely different way than in school, individually and artistically.
The texts are publicly performed by the young people at a poetry slam and judged by the audience. This is a big step to go public with a self-written work, which requires courage and self-confidence. So far, eight “U20 Poetry Slams” have been held since 2017, each with about 8-10 participants* and a young person as moderator – the great Max Matthies.
