Cellar Slam- Brilliant night, slightly tainted...

Well, last night was certainly a night to remember. Over the two and a bit hours, some truly brilliant and entertaining poetry was heard. All nine slammers came out guns a blazing for the first round, highlights being a great reading of "Radio Pussycat" by Graham Buchan, a whole lotta laughs from the clever wordplay of AF Harold, Peter Donnally and Other Theresa followed by more textured thoughtful pieces by inua, honest, Delroy Murray and our guest from the states Dakota. Everybody hit the absolute heights and I've hardly known an audience to leave a first half as charged up and stimulated as the one we were so lucky to have.
First round done, with little to separate the slammers, the second round was a more challenging affair. A line of poetry was chosen at random and the slammers had the course of the twenty minute interval to build a poem around it. This line was All this stood upon her and was the world, by Rilke. The majority of the slammers made a gallant effort, some only coming up with a handful of well chosen lines, others reaming out intense, stream of conciousness epics. However a real smear was left on an otherwise brilliant evening when a few proffessional slammers simply intertwined the chosen line into one of their pre-prepared slam standards. The fact that they didn't even pretend to read it from a piece of paper instead of doing the full on well rehearsed hand flailing recitals only served to underline their contempt for audience, host, fellow slammers and the spirit of the event itself.
I don't think it's important who won the event, soon those fifty pounds will be separated and drifting through the ether of the economy. As inflation rises, fifty pounds beomes much less. All that remains is the brilliant efforts of poets who dived headfirst into the challenge, and others whose love of winning outweighed their love of our wonderful art. These are the peaks and the troughs of an evening I will never forget.
Oh yeah, and the sight of Donal Dempsey trying to read the writing that was slowly vanishing from his sweaty hands after ten minutes trying not to clap or mop his brow will bring a big cheesy grin to my mug til the day I frickin die.