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36 Arts & Culture
CARA THOMPSON -WINNER OF SLAM O VISION 2021
By Sharon Stevens
Some time ago, I chatted with Cara Thompson, a poet and writer local to Nottingham. She is forthright and an inspirational young woman. When Cara entered, she represented Nottingham and the UK in the competition. Cara, who began writing poems as a child, became a freelance poet and is part of the Gobs Collective’s poetry group, which encompassed its involvement in the Nottingham Poetry Festival. 2021 was the third event of the Slam O Vision Global Poetry Slam. In 2019 the finalists were from Quebec City, Nottingham, Melbourne, Iowa City, Heidelberg, Tartu, and Edinburgh. The winner (from Utrecht) was Babs Gobs, with her poem Ass Man. In 2020 the finalists were from Manchester, Quebec City, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Tartu, Reykjavik, and Ulyanovsk. The winner was Jardel Rodrigues from Manchester with his poem Barbirolli Square.
Were you nervous when you pre-recorded your performances?
This is my conversation with Cara:
How many people were in the finals?
Can you tell me a little about yourself?
It was me and six others, so each city would have gone through the same thing, asking poets from the region to apply. The judges then decide on one who will go forward to represent them. My poem went to the final. It was a live broadcast. It was hosted by the Manchester City of Literature, which won last year. Like Eurovision, whoever wins hosts it the next time. Then also the Québec City of Literature co-hosted internationally. It was pleasant as a nice blend, I think, to see how two cities approach things.
I have been doing poetry for a few years now. I say that I officially started writing about the age of 15 or 16. It’s something I fell into. In the beginning, I didn’t even realise it was what I was doing. I was writing and enjoying it. It was around my second year of Uni when the performance side started. It’s been kind of a rollercoaster ever since then; from something I’m developing and growing every day. I’ve joined in with local poetry collectives and events. It’s all become its own thing. How did you get involved in the Slam competition? So, Slam O Vision is something I became aware of a while ago. Like I said before, I’m involved in a few poetry collectives, and the main one I’m involved with is Gobs Collective. That’s been a huge part of my journey as a poet. I’d say that, up until this year, I really wasn’t even comfortable calling myself a poet. The leaders of the collective shared about the Slam O Vision thing. Initially, I had no intentions of entering. Again, it was a matter of confidence because of the performance side. Tell me about Slam ’O’ Vision. Slam O Vision is a competition organised by the UNESCO cities of literature. It’s a global thing, and seven cities of literature take part. Nottingham is a city of literature. We’ve been given the title by UNESCO as we’ve a strong literary heritage, so we are eligible to compete in this competition. It’s exactly like Eurovision, with the same principle. You put someone forward to represent you, and then all these different cities compete. Then it’s a public vote, including my judges, followed by you asking people to vote for you. It’s also about judges in these cities, giving you points so whoever gets the most points win.
Honestly, no, because I didn’t expect to win. I know it sounds terrible and quite self-deprecating, but I kind of entered with the spirit that there’s nothing to lose in applying. And even if I didn’t win, it was worth a try. I submitted it on a whim - you look back at how you delivered it and see how it’s coming across.
How did it feel waiting for the results? It was mixed feelings. I was just kind of really pleased to be a part of it, I think, for a start. It was almost like I was watching a good poetry gig. Like you just sat and watched these other performances. You just try to enjoy them and appreciate what you’re listening to. Despite that, I think it was when the voting started that I realised that it would be quite nice to win. Literally screamed what! I kept laughing, but I don’t know why that reaction came out. It was all a bit hysterical! How was this possible? This started with me filming something in my room, not really thinking anything of it, basically throwing it to the wind, and it just became this moment. It was just really, really lovely. I assumed that with the content of my poem, being quite specific to being this Black British person, Windrush and all these things. I thought that there was no way someone from, I don’t know, Finland was going to understand what I was saying, but they did. It took me about two days to actually accept it. Click the link for the rest of the interview: https:// mojatu.com/2022/11/04/cara-thompson-winner-ofslam-o-vision-2021/