For the second Literary Festival held in Rugby, Incy’s wish came true. Last year she was the only child to perform at the inaugural literary festival. When the press asked her about performing she had said she hoped more children would get involved in performing next year – and this year, they did. Although Incy was still the only child to give a reading of her own poetry to a large audience at a venue at the festival, there was an opportunity for children to write and then read their poetry in the library. This was to an audience of approximately 20 people at a workshop held by a poet.
Richard Grant is a Birmingham based poet who is known as the Dreadlock Alien. Richard was poet laureate for Birmingham between 2005-2007. He runs workshops for children and has created poetry used in public campaigns.
Incy attended Richard’s festival workshop – a “bootcamp” to inspire writing poetry, focusing on dub-style poetry, which was followed by performances.
One of the highlights was where the children engaged in a “battle” – a poetry slam where they attempted to out-rhyme one another. It was very entertaining to watch the two teams, which had a mixture of ages, and some grown-ups got involved too.
Incy gave a reading of a poem she had written in the bootcamp. Later, she read out one of Richard’s poems from his book.
Attending workshops is a fun way to be engaged with poetry. Incy enjoys having time to write poetry as well as meet fellow poets. Try to catch the Alien at his future events!