Notts poet Marjie Griffiths on reaching the final of spoken word contest Slamovision

What first drew you to writing poetry, and how has your relationship with it grown over time?
I've always been a writer. I really loved creative writing at school, and I've got a particular love of funny limericks and clever word play. I think I got that from reading a lot of Hillaré Belloc’s works, who I’m a big fan of. 

Back in 2017, I came across Crosswords open mic night, they helped to open my eyes to a whole new world of poetry, especially performance poetry and the art of listening to and learning from other poets. Something which I find to be a really powerful experience. Through the Crosswords group, I found the confidence to share my own poems, and that allowed me to grow even further as a poet. The immediate reactions of a live audience really make you consider your words in a completely different way. 

Ultimately, though, I think it was the community itself that drew me in, and its welcoming nature that has really kept me writing long-term. 

What does Nottingham’s poetry scene and the community that comes with it mean to you?
The Nottingham poetry scene just means everything to me. It’s a city of poets who are wildly supportive, fiercely political and endlessly inventive.

What I love about the Nottingham poetry scene is that everyone will cheer you on, but also challenge you at the same time. It’s because of the community that I’ve been able to really grow as a poet; they've taught me to be brave, and to keep showing my work, even when it doesn't feel easy. I feel like the Nottingham Poetry community is the ultimate safety net; they have such a safe and loving warmth to them as people. When you have such incredible creatives like Bridie Squires or Leanne Moden, or even the amazing Gobs collective, believing in you and pushing you, it’s difficult not to go out and want to showcase your work to the community. 

It’s amazing how wholeheartedly the poetry community has backed you and helped you feel confident sharing your work. Hopefully, people will hear about that and feel inspired to get involved in the literary heart of the city too?
You know, I really like the idea of Nottingham being a city of rebels. Growing up, I’ve always been the least rebellious person on the planet; I'm very conciliatory. 
I like rules, and I like to follow them. But I think Nottingham itself has taught me to branch out and be a bit braver, because it is so deeply a city of rebels, to its very foundations.
In Nottingham, the status quo is never really the status quo, and I find that incredibly inspiring.  

[I love that sentiment. When I first moved to Nottingham, I kept hearing it described as the Rebel City, and I've always loved that identity. It feels unique to Nottingham, something people can really adopt and grow into. It gives a sense of how the city can helps you find your own voice.]

I once had a really good boss who told me we should always try and be just 5% braver. And I think Nottingham is a city that really embraces that philosophy of just stepping out of your comfort zone that little bit more.

As both a school teacher and a poet, do you ever find these roles influence one another? How does your teaching life feed into your creative one? Or vice versa?
Absolutely, they do! I think teaching and poetry are constantly in conversation for me, because children have this instinct for truth and play, and for wordplay, that I find utterly infectious. They remind me to enjoy the process of writing just as much as the product, and that poetry doesn't need to be perfect to be powerful. It just needs to be real. 


Leanne Moden always reminds me that perfection is the enemy of good, and to focus more on the process than the product, to just get a rough draft out there, and then edit and improve it later. That's a philosophy I now use in my teaching every day, too. 

On the flip side, writing and performing have helped to make me a much better teacher. They’ve taught me to really listen to words, and strangely, to listen to silence as well. To allow people the space to come to their own conclusions, both in learning and in interpreting poetry. 

Ultimately, though, I think that both roles are at heart all about my three favourite Cs: Connection, Creativity, and Curiosity. To me, the Venn diagram of teaching and poetry is those three words; when combined, they create that perfect result in the centre. 

What does it mean to you to have represented Nottingham at the Slamovision final?
It was an absolute honour. I'm still blown away by it, to be honest. Nottingham's poetry scene is so fierce, generous, and gloriously quirky, and it's a pleasure to be a part of it! So, standing on the Slamovision stage, feeling like I was carrying a little piece of our city's voice with me, felt huge. Nottingham is home to so many incredible writers, and I am proud beyond measure to be recognised as one of them.

How would you describe your experience, the atmosphere, and energy of the event?
Oh, it sounds really cliche to say, but it was just electric. It was so fun. There was this wonderful sense of solidarity there, each poet representing a different city, but all of us sharing and enjoying the experience together. 

I sat next to Sven from Bremen, who did the robot poem, and he was an absolute hoot, just a lovely person. He described us at the end of his performance as a little ‘Slamily,’ which was really sweet. 

It felt very strange to be in a competition where everybody was cheering each other on, and were just as hopeful that someone else would win as they were for themselves. It made me feel like it didn’t really matter who won; everyone was just enjoying the moment.

That’s a lovely sentiment. It seems like it was such a warm and supportive atmosphere, even after knowing each other for only a few hours, you were all able to create a beautiful little community of love with each other, that went beyond competition.
Exactly, the competition is what drew us all in; that is, after all, why we were all there. But the underlying purpose of the whole thing wasn’t about finding a winner; it was about community and connection through the City of Literature network. 

How did you approach writing your poem Politics Isn’t My Thing: How I Ruined a Dinner Party? Was there a particular moment or feeling that sparked it?
It's actually an old poem. I wrote it back in 2019, which I then adapted and revised to make it feel appropriate for 2025. 

I was having dinner with some friends, hence the subtitle, when one of them revealed that he’d voted for Boris Johnson in the 2019 election. When I asked him why, he said he thought Johnson was funny, adding that politics “wasn't his thing.” He didn't believe his vote or voice really mattered in the election. 

This poem is a frustrated response to that conversation. It came to me as a three-in-the-morning thought, a few days later, when I realised just how upset I was that he felt his voice didn’t make a difference, and because of that, treated his vote like a joke.

Politics Isn’t My Thing touches on some heavy realities, drawing from topical news: Gaza, immigration, and rising tensions in politics. How did you find the balance between frustration and hope when writing it?
That is my absolute favourite question. I guess Politics Isn’t My Thing is quite a serious poem, for me, considering I usually like to write about cats and funny things. But I think balance is everything. And I fervently believe that hope isn't some naïve thing that's gifted to us by some external power. Hope doesn't just happen; it’s a discipline. You have to work at it. 

I think it's so easy to drown in despair when you catalogue the world's injustices, but hope is, in itself, an act of rebellion too. This poem became a kind of balancing act, one foot in truth and one foot in faith that things can get better. I didn't want to offer false comfort, but I did want to create and leave space for the idea that change is possible, and that the change has to come from us. Hope can't be unfounded; there has to be action behind it as well. 

That is a really powerful way of thinking about it, actually, the poem essentially creates a platform for conversation, which is quite awe-inspiring.
It actually reminds me of a Star Wars quote: “Rebellions are built on hope.” To me, it fits so perfectly with the idea of the rebel city, and making your voice heard in the face of hardship and injustices.

Oh, such a good quote, I love that even more! There are some great books on the philosophy behind Star Wars, too. There’s so much depth you can gain from media and literature. 

Exactly, Star Wars is political at its core, so it ties in beautifully. But anyway, now I'm going off on a tangent!

Much of your previous work leans towards humour, obviously, ‘Politics’ carries a much more serious tone. How did you navigate that shift in voice? Did a more serious poem come naturally, or did it take more time to develop? 

Humour has always been my default. Whether I'm at school or at home, I just don't cope well with conflict, and like I've said before, I'm naturally a very conciliatory sort of person. Humour is often how I make sense of discomfort. But actually, 2025 just didn't feel like a year to joke about. It felt like a year to be brave and to be as honest as I possibly could. It felt like the right poem for the time. 

I went to the local slam thinking, Oh, I could do a funny poem about this or a light-hearted poem about that. Like I did last year with my poem Zombie Cats, which is written entirely in limericks, all about the mummified cats in the British Museum. And don’t get me wrong, it's a great poem. It's really tight, the syllable counts are spot on, and it's quite funny, but it's just not a 2025 poem. So when I was preparing myself for this year's Slam, I had to remind myself to be just that 5% braver. I dusted off the 2019 poem and adapted it, so the shift in voice for 2025 felt natural and right and proper. 


Your poem feels like both a critique and a call to stay politically engaged, even when things feel bleak. Are you concerned or quietly optimistic, hoping works like this might urge change or renewed engagement?
I’d say I’m both concerned and quietly optimistic. You can't really have one without the other; I'd probably say I’m “stubbornly optimistic”. It's really hard not to feel bleak sometimes; there's so much noise and division in the world right now. 

But poetry, I think, is actually about acts of engagement, both big and small. It's through engagement in art and conversation and finding empathy in those that will save us in the end. So, yes, I'm quietly optimistic, because the world is full of wonderful, wonderful people, and we just have to remember that when times get tough. 

When you introduce your poem, you always introduce it with a brilliant quip, a second title - “How I Ruined a Dinner Party.” Are poetry readings a regular occurrence at your dinner parties?

Only if I want to clear the table really quickly!


This makes me giggle, because actually, I don't think I’ve ever shared my poetry at dinner parties or many similar situations. I think it’s simply because poetry can feel like such an intimate thing to share at times. At a poetry event, everyone has chosen to be there; there's already consent in the room. We're all there to hear and share poetry.
But in smaller, more personal spaces, sharing a poem can feel very intimate, so I tend to shy away from them. 

In fact, sometimes it can even be difficult to share with family. I actually invited my mum to come to Dublin with me for Slamovision; she'd never been to a poetry event before, so having her there brought this whole extra layer of joy and anxiety. I know that my mum is my biggest fan; she's incredible, but having her there in the audience definitely added a different kind of pressure. Of course, you want to do well for everyone who is supporting you, but you especially want to do well for your mum. 

It’s also a very different experience when you're sharing poetry with people who are not necessarily immersed in poetry every day as part of the Nottingham poetry scene, as they encounter and experience your work in a completely different way, so there is that extra added pressure.

How do you go about preparing for a poetry performance? Do you have any specific rituals or habits?
This might sound really uncool, but to my mind, preparation is about practice, practice, practice. I know it’s a very teacherly answer. I really love the idea that poetry can be completely spontaneous, but I can't really do that. I feel very much that my words are my words and belong to me until I share them, and I feel a responsibility to the audience and to myself as well to make sure that the words land the way they need to. 

So I practise everywhere, at home, at school. In fact, whilst I was preparing for Slamovision, a lovely drama teacher at school very kindly lent me some of his time to go through the poem together and focus on the performance itself. Although practice doesn’t necessarily always make perfect, it does give you the confidence to go out and perform on the night, and maybe even be a little more spontaneous when you’re on the stage.

Is there a particular moment from Slamovision that really sticks out in your memory?
Yeah absolutely. Sitting there during the judging, I had Sven on my right and Marjon from Reykjavik on my left. As the points were all coming in, whenever any big points were announced, we’d all hug each other and say, “Oh, that's you! Well done!” That was the best part. The warmth in that room could have powered the national grid. The fact that we were all cheering for each other as much as we were hopeful for our own poems was the biggest takeaway for me.  

It sounds so wonderful. The way you describe the unity between competitors makes me picture Eurovision; I suppose that’s what the name Slamovison alludes to, but it's definitely giving me those vibes, and I love that idea.
You’re right, it is just like a poetry Eurovision, but where everybody is Sam Ryder! And they’re all just the most joyful, absolutely lovely people you could hope to meet. 

Do you have a favourite poem from any of the other competing Cities of Literature?
I really liked Nika from Ljubljana’s poem, Home to Good People. There was a quiet reflectiveness to it which made it so beautiful, yet extraordinarily powerful. She's a very, very talented poet.

Another wonderful poet, Cat Brogan, the Dublin representative, who performed a beautiful poem The House Martins, put it best just before her performance. She described poems as being “essays at volume,” and I think that’s what I really liked about Nika’s work; it echoed this idea, uniquely, through its calmer, more contemplative nature, which made it just so powerfully reflective.

Finally, what’s next for you? Are there any new projects you're working on?
I definitely want to get out a bit more and go and do more poetry nights; just be around the wonderful poets of Nottingham a bit more often.

But before that, I’m actually working on quite a big project, compiling my first pamphlet, which I’m very excited about! It's called What's Stopping You. The title is inspired by my lovely dad, who died at the end of 2022. Because whenever I had a moment of doubt or felt I didn’t believe in myself, he would always ask, “Well, darling, what’s stopping you?”

That question always helped me identify barriers in my own mind and made it so much easier to overcome them. For many years, I thought I couldn’t possibly put myself forward for a slam. Who would be interested in my words or what I have to say? And now I have, so this pamphlet is the natural next step, and is something I think ultimately I’ll be very proud of, and I know my dad would’ve been proud to see it, too. 

The pamphlet is currently with Leanne Moden and Martin Grey for editing, and Jasmine Issaka, one of my favourite artists, is creating some cover art for it. I'm really excited about how it's shaping up. I can't wait to start the brutal process of submitting it to publishers. I know that there are going to be plenty of rejections, but ultimately, one day, I think it will be published, and I’m looking forward to seeing that day. 

It feels so wonderful to finally do this, because it’s so important to give yourself validation and remind yourself that your voice matters. I defy anybody not to believe in themselves when you have so many people from the Nottingham literary scene who believe in you so passionately and really support the work you do. People like Hannah Trevarthen and Claire Bradnam from NUCoL, and the GOBS Collective, who are saying “you’re amazing.” Or a room full of people who have never met before, from all over the world at Slamovision, who are all rooting for each other.

This kind of love and support becomes a kind of magical energy, almost like a superpower, that you can use to go and achieve new things.

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