Shoko Festival Slam Poetry Express
The Slam Poetry Express held at the Mannenberg was a live poetry battle featuring leading poets from all over the world. Each poet had 3 minutes do deliver their poem. The audience, were the judges! The poets picked a number from the hat which would determine when they would deliver their poem. Five random judges were picked by the host non other than Godobori. They would each give the poet a mark out of 10. Then Godobori would take away the highest and the lowest then take the average of the last three marks and that was the score. There were three rounds with Mandisa Mabuthoe from Botswana coming out tops. The slam was a rip-roaring, fun-filled international poetry slam featuring leading poets from all over the world. DJ Marv Studd provided the music. It was my first time to hear a lot of Zimbabwes' most talked about poets including Xapa, Synik, Aerosol and Flochyld and they all lived up to the hype. Other participants were Timothy Mwaura (Kenya), Mischael-Sarim (Germany), Black Pearl (Zimbabwe), KB (RSA)Mwana Africa (Zimbabwe), Madzitateguru (Zimbabwe), Nyamalikiti (Malawi), Lungile Lethola (RSA). DJ Marv kept the music pumping in between the breaks.