Sunway National Poetry Slam™ 2021

This year’s 8th Sunway National Poetry Slam^TM (SNaPS^TM ) wrapped up on Friday night, featuring a virtual gathering of over 34 performers from ten schools from around Malaysia.

SNaPS^TM, the annual competition hosted by Sunway International Schools (SIS) aims to nurture young talents with creative expression, literary art, and their voices. This virtual night of spoken words saw participants competing in three categories (1) Junior Solo Poets, (2) Senior Solo Poets, and (3) Group Poets.

Similar to the previous years, participants were invited to join the complimentary online poetry workshop for a chance to learn from the Champion of the 2018 and 2019 Causeway Exchange Poetry, Venezia May. Attending this workshop is the perfect way to develop their voices, learn more about the art of poetry writing, and find inspiration among other participants.   

More than 48 videos from 24 schools received for the Online Submission (Preliminary) Round, 10% of the marks are derived from public votings on the SIS YouTube channel, and 90% of the marks are derived from the 3 judges, Low Ngai Yuen, Film Director, Producer, Actress, TV Show Host & President of KakiSeni, Professor Stephen Hall, Author & Head - Centre for English Language Studies of Sunway University on content and performance and Arisha Akhir, Published Spoken Word Poet, Children’s Book Author, & Storyteller.

As a result of the judges' scrutiny, only 10 schools successfully qualified for the finale, competing for 3 categories: Junior, Senior, and Group. SIS welcomed 3 esteemed judges: Venezia May, Arisha Akhir and Colin Kirton, Actor, Director, Producer, Musician, & Co-founder and Artistic Director of Kirton Call Productions & Footstool Players.

Spoken word is a form of poetry that people - particularly young people - use as a means to express their views, opinions, thoughts, experiences and frustrations. Giving them a voice and an outlet in order to, hopefully, create positive change within society.

“It has been a challenging couple of years and so it's important, more so now than ever, that we as a community work together to pave our way back to normalcy. In line with the theme for this year’s SNaPS^TM competition - Thrive Together”, says Jessica Kenzington, the chairperson of the SNaPS^TM 2021.
 
The list of winners is as below:

Junior category (age 15 and below):
●    Third: Tan Zoe Yi, Sunway International School Sunway City KL
●    Second: Jasslyn Desharthan Aathithan, Sunway International School Sunway City Iskandar Puteri 
●    First: Maisie Tate, The International School @ ParkCity

Senior category (age 16 – 18):
●    Third: Gelson Eng, Sunway International School Sunway City KL
●    Second: Eng Zhen Shen, SMK Sultan Abu Bakar, Kuantan
●    First: Teioh Nuan Ning, HELP International School

Group category (age 18 and below):
●    Third: HIS Slammers, HELP International School
●    Second: Iris, Idrissi International School
●    First: Twice the Trouble, SMK Sultan Abu Bakar, Kuantan

Helios Award (Overall champion with the highest total combined scores) :
●    HELP International School

Spirit Award (School with highest online votes on grand finale):
●    SMK Taman Desa, Kuala Lumpur

In line with SIS’s motto, “Nurturing Minds, Building Character'', which promotes healthy development in the creative arts for its students as well as harnessing their academic strengths and personal talents, SIS aims to provide the platform and environment to nurture students through its annual poetry slam events. Based on track record, SNaPS^TM has become the place and space for many young students to stand up and speak out and certainly allowed them to stretch and work beyond their comfort zones. 

This is the second year that the event was held fully online and it has become boundless. With SNaPS^TM, not only SIS students were given the opportunity to grow and shine, students from other schools are welcome to join and SIS is excited and proud to host this annual event for all the young talents out there!