KATHMANDU, Dec 15: In a competitive yet friendly afternoon of performances by 20 young slam poets, the top five winners were announced after two hours and 30 poems.
Organized by the US Embassy in collaboration with Quixote´s Cove: the bookshop, the Poetry Slam QC Awards ´10 went to Yukta Bajracharya, Ujjwala Maharjan, Eliz Parajuli of Chelsea International Academy, Pratiksha Sharma of Budhanilkantha School and Alisha Sapkota of Rato Bangala School.
The auditions for the competition was held on Friday, December 10, which had an attendance of 79 poets, of whom 20 were selected to move on to the semi-final round. While American slam poets Danny Solis and Matt Mason hosted the semi-finals and the finals respectively, the five judges Viplob Pratik, Amod Bhattarai, Nayan Pokharel, Karen Finneyfrock and Sarita Dewan, took upon the task of scoring the poets, 10 of whom would move on to the final round, where each had to perform a different poem.
Since participants weren´t limited to a particular theme, the poems ranged from fictional and comic ones to poignant personal experiences along with some addressing contemporary issues such as global warming and violence.
"I am glad that Danny, Matt and Karen came to Nepal because the workshop was very fruitful and satisfying," shared Bajracharya, whose final poem was titled ´Home´. "Everyone has something to say and if you can´t sing, then you can speak about it," she opined, adding that the event was more for the love of poetry than a competition.
Emphasizing on the very passion of poetry was Solis, a two-time winner of Burque Poetry Slam Champion. "The point is not the points, but poetry," he repeated throughout the event, while competitors were being scored out of 10 for performance and content.
The five awardees were presented with books and a gift voucher worth Rs 3,000 to purchase books from QC: the bookshop at Jhamiskhel in Patan.
The co-founder Suvani Singh informed that the participants were enthusiastic about forming a group and continuing the poetry. "They have shown interest, so in future we will see a lot more performances," concluded Singh.
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