I am da slam masta.. :-)
Gee. Strange things happen when you least expect it. Yesterday I went to the library in Sundbyberg where they had an Open stage. There I ran into István, the man behind Ordfront poesicup. He convinced me to read a poem on stage. I was a bit nervous, and it didn’t go very well, but afterwards I felt a great relief to have tried it now and not at the poetry cup for the first time in almost two years.
Afterwards István asked me to join him to Rinkeby and their poetry slam. I’ve been wanting to go for a long time, and it was nice to get some company, so I tagged along. There were two lists at the door – one for the slam competion and one for an open stage that was to start off the evening.
Somehow I got the guts to put my name on the competition list, since there was a blank spot left. István was also going to compete.
After the open stage and feature poet – a woman named Nina Burton who wrote well, but I had a hard time concentrating on her poems – it was time for the slam. I felt oddly relaxed. It was fun to go on stage. And it went well.
The slam is conducted in duels. Eight competitors meet two and two, are reduced to four, then to two. I picked the strongest piece to read first, and won my first duel.
Then.. I won the second one, and all of a sudden I was in the final. Against István! We laughed at the whole thing. I got to pick who should start the final round, and I told István to go ahead. I didn’t hear his score, but I remembered around where the different jurys’ scores had been. My last piece was my weakest, and when the scores came I was certain that they weren’t enough. My total was 20.3. I asked István what he had got, but he didn’t remember either. “20-something”, he said.
And then: “The final score is: Lotta Holmström 20.3, István Molnár 20.0”. What a surprise! I had won. Great fun and totally unexpected. I wasn’t even supposed to have come. :-)
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