Performance poet, Dreadlock Alien, aka Richard Grant, was joined by fellow performance poet and hip-hop artist Alan (Kurly) McGeachie to entertain and inspire our students during their recent visit.

As well as whole year group presentations for our Year 9 and Year 11 students, Dreadlock Alien also delivered workshops for selected KS3 and KS4 students, preparing them for the poetry strand of their English examinations.

He started his high-octane presentations by performing an off-the-cuff poem that he constructed using students’ names, which had them hooked from the start. He then introduced rhyming games with a huge amount of audience interaction before persuading students and staff to take centre stage for a beatboxing and rhyming challenge. Congratulations to Year 9 Danielle Mwarewangepo who was declared ‘Rhyme Champion’ after a closely fought rap battle with English teacher Miss Walvin, who was gracious in defeat and said, ‘I conceded defeat to the better rhymer.’

Dreadlock Alien has been touring schools performing his poetry for almost twenty years and this is his fourth visit to Brooke Weston Academy. He said, ‘The most exciting thing is the changing face of poetry with spoken word and live literature. Spoken word is linked to music. Most adverts nowadays all have little rhymes or raps, so the whole explosion of poetry into spoken word in its many art forms, such as rap, grime, lyrics, that for me is the exciting thing about poetry at the moment. Technology takes things to new levels and now there are even Instagram poets with millions of hits. ’

Lauren Fitzjohn, Literacy Coordinator at Brooke Weston, said, ‘I felt so proud watching our students thrive in a creative, engaging and challenging environment – the performances and workshops allowed them the opportunity to be creative, challenge social conventions and empower others. Another memorable day full of BW buzz - we have some performance poets in the making!’