The results of the 3rd annual inter-school St Andrews Green Valley Poetry Slam are in, and the St Andrews slammers are about as electrifying a force on stage as they are on the sports field.
Thursday 29th May saw 20 students from St Andrews Sukhumvit 107 in Bangkok and Green Valley gather to compete for the prestigious annual poetry slam award. Competing students had to perform a poem in the most engaging manner using voice, acting and props before an audience composed of hundreds of parents, teachers and students as well as a panel of judges. Finalists had been drawn from a hotly contested pool of talent in school heats before being chosen to compete in the afternoon event at St Andrews Green Valley.
The Year group winners of the Poetry Slam from St. Andrews Green Valley and St. Andrews Sukhumvit 107 in Bangkok.
Highlights included Green Valley Year 8 students Jade and Eliza performing the iconoclastic ‘Exam Results will not decide our Fate’ as well as Sukhumvit 107 Year 7 students Bayon Chiu with his self-written poem ‘Mechanical Monsters’. Year group winners were Year 7 Matthew McClean (Sukhumvit 107), Year 8 Seajin and Jiwon (Green Valley), Year 9 Samyak Sheth and Gao (Ray) Ruixi (Sukhumvit 107), Year 10 Tia Magee (Green Valley).
The overall event winner was student Pang Thaworwong, Year 10 in Green Valley, who both captivated and challenged the audiences and judges with the complex and topical poem, ‘What kind of Asian are you?’ by Alex Dang.
Pang, a year 10 student from St. Andrews Green Valley, was the overall winner of the Slam.
Both judges and audience were bowled over by the dramatic finesse of the entrants, and students felt it had inspired their passion for poetry. Winner Pang said of the event, ‘The Poetry Slam was a terrific experience and a great opportunity to express my feelings through a poem. It also developed my confidence as a public speaker before a large audience’.