Daniel Piper's Poetry Slam World Cup Diary

Daniel Piper is the reigning Poetry Slam champion in Scotland, but how would he fare when facing poets from around the globe at the Slam's World Cup finals in Paris?

Feature by Daniel Piper | 11 Jul 2017

Last week I struck up a conversation with a stranger on a train because people don’t talk enough these days. I had skilfully deduced that we’d both attended the same university (his baseball cap said ‘University of Warwick’ on it). He told me he had studied Computer Science and I told him I had studied Creative Writing. Cue a curious eyebrow and vague tone of condescension: "So what do you do now?"

As has happened countless times before. I mentally juggled the words/phrases "Poet", "Writer", "Spoken Word Artist", "Comedian", "Performer" and "Well, I sometimes freelance in social media". Apologetically, I farted out all five.

What I wish I’d said was: "Well actually mate, I just came second in the world in the Poetry Slam World Cup in Paris. This technically means I’m the second best poet in the world (living or dead). Plus, as my Mum says, sometimes it’s better to be the runner up (see 1D/Matt Cardle [or Olly Murs/Joe McElderry]). Plus, I think we’re all familiar with the phrase ‘First the worst, second the best, third the one with the hairy chest’, so you could say I’m the best. So yeah. 'Best poet in the world mate.’"

Okay, that might have sounded a bit stupid. But after five years of not quite being able to describe what I do, I’m pretty proud to have won both a national and (almost) a world title for it this year. After winning the Scottish Championships in January, at the World Cup I was 0.4 points away from first (the worst) and 0.6 away from third (the hairiest). So second. (The best.)

Anyway, enough about me. I want to talk about the experience of the World Cup itself. For all my "To-be-honest-I’m-just-looking-forward-to-a-free-trip-to-Paris" cynicism before going, it turned out to be a very excellent experience.

I was among the first to arrive at Culture Rapide, the small, bohemian (and very red) bar in Belleville which served as our base for the week. I was met by Charléne, who had been sending me some rather curt emails about flights/hotels/poem lengths for the past few weeks. Except it wasn’t Charléne. It was Pilote, the festival director, proclaiming "Charlene is dead!" It turned out he used a fictional persona for emails. I’m still not sure why. He was interesting.

Pilote handed me my ‘Licence Poetique’ (lol) which gave me 50% off at the bar. The next few hours consisted of poets from 25 different countries arriving one-by-one and getting to know each other over cheap beer, a free lunch of baguettes and some deeply suspect, perfectly circular, processed crab.

By far the best thing about this experience was making 25 friends from 25 different countries. Any sense of ‘scoping out the competition’ (at least two poets immediately pointed out that I was competing against them in round one) soon disappeared over that first lunch. It became apparent this was just a really interesting bunch of people, all here to share some stuff we’ve made. I loved hearing about how people from different countries regard slam poetry – for some it’s a predominantly fun affair, still very niche at home. For others it’s taken incredibly seriously, with various levels of championships. I felt guilty hearing someone announce that they had ‘waited years for this’. Until this year I have avoided slam poetry completely, considering myself ‘more of a comedian to be honest’. I only went along to that first slam in Glasgow to make friends after moving up from London.

With the inevitable language barriers, a few of those conversations took place over smartphones, shoved in one-another’s faces with Google Translate loaded up. But therein lay some of the most inspiring moments of the competition. All of our poems were projected behind us in both English and French. So while a few hours earlier I was asking Alexander from Russia "What is the weather like there?" or telling Komoru that "I would like to visit Japan one day!", that night in the theatre I watched (and read) their beautiful, funny and lyrical poetry.

It isn’t a groundbreaking observation, but onstage, everyone was different. I’ve complained in the past that poetry nights can feel limited to "[insert politician] is bad" or "I got dumped and it was bad". There was as bit of that, but also stuff about sexuality, bereavement, sea life, Kevin Bacon, the Black Lives Matter movement, vegetarianism, dementia and, probably my favourite, Hitler catching his shoelace in an escalator and being slowly and satisfyingly crushed to death. Some read from a sheet, some sang, some danced and some (me) rapped (badly).

The variety of styles and indeed poets is a testament to the amorphous nature of poetry itself. Not to put too wanky a point on it, but I did rather fall in love with poetry over the week. That’s where I should write ‘all over again’. But, that’s the thing – having started off in comedy, I’ve only ever ‘quite fancied’ poetry or, I don’t know, ‘found it cute’. It took the World Cup to make me finally fall in love. I guess what I’m saying is: if you ever get the chance to attend any kind of global poetry event, go.

Then again, I had a better time than some. If you spoke French or English, you were at an advantage. I was sad to see Alexander and Komoru knocked out in the first round. There's no way round that most of the audience was able to listen to my poems and read them, and I do think that translated – excuse the pun – into higher scores. Then again, the winning poet was Norwegian. What does it all mean? Who knows. Maybe nothing.

It’s strange – I still find the idea of competitive art ridiculous, but that’s not going to stop me putting ‘2nd in the world’ on this year’s Edinburgh flyer. I’m proud of it, and I think for the first time I’m proud to say that I’m a poet, not a sort of ‘spoken word comedy performer’. The comedian in me wants to be snarky about poetry. But, standing on stage with all 25 other poets at the final, after a fifth rousing night of joy, anger and all the other emotions, it was thrilling to be one of them.


Daniel Piper's Day Off, Underbelly Cowgate (Delhi Belly), 3-27 Aug (not 14), 4pm, £6.50-£10.

http://www.daniel-piper.co.uk