This year’s theme for National Poetry Day is refuge. Refuge can be interpreted in a number of ways: you can seek refuge; you can take refuge and you can live in a refuge.
Year 7 celebrated National Poetry Day with Phil Wilcox, Australian Poetry Slam Champion and an awarded and published full time poet. We were lucky to book Phil before he returns to his native Australia – he has worked with 200,000 students in 300 schools worldwide.
Phil’s approach is to show students how poetry can point out truths in our society, at the same time as building a richer world. This was particularly effective when he encouraged students to think of the Earth as our refuge, touching on topics including climate change and environmental destruction. Students provided the soundscape for ‘My Country Sounds Like A’ and were enthusiastic as Phil performed a new poem over a Super Mario Bros theme.
Phil explained how his love of poetry began and how he won the Australian Poetry Slam championship in Sydney Opera House by creating a poem on the spot. His shape poem (a form of visual poem in which the words are arranged into a specific shape) on climate change was delivered with the help of Siri.
There was plenty of interaction between Phil and the audience, who were keen to share their ideas. The final poem they produced as a group left us with facts about the world as it is and hope for the future.
Students now know what a poetry slam is and that the Ancient Greeks incorporated poetry into the original Olympic Games. We hope that year 7’s sessions with Phil will inspire them to create their own poems for the Library’s National Poetry Day competition.
“I liked the confidence Phil portrayed when he performed and the unique flow of his poems. Thank you for coming to NLCS!” – Diya, NLCS Student
