CandleLIT Poetry Slam Grand Final ft. Edward Tripp and Eryn McDonald

The CandleLIT Poetry Slam has been running on the first Wednesday of every month at the Bath Brew House, upstairs in the Tank Room, since October 2025. Now it is time for our end of year Grand Slam Final!

Join us for the tense excitement of 9 poets (the winners of our previous 8 slams plus our highest overall runner up - Celine Merrilla, Rebecca Rocker, Freya Gillard, Clive Oseman, Holly Morgan, Jaymes with a Y, Teej, Caleb Simon, and Matt Thrower) going head to head with words to win the title of Bath Slam Champion, a trophy, a book voucher to Mr B's Emporium bookshop, £100 cash, and a place at the England Slam Championship (by Farrago Poetry) in 2027! PLUS we have two incredible sets from our featured artist Eryn McDonald and our hilarious headliner Edward Tripp!

Edward Tripp is a multiple-slam winning performance poet, comedian, visual artist and former Bard of Exeter.

Using poetry, props and the occasional theatrical effect, Edward performs at comedy nights and spoken word festivals across the UK.

Edward holds the slightly dubious accolade of being the only UK City Bard to be appointed in the same week he won the Southwest ‘anti-slam’ championship. Technically, this means that Edward was recognised as the best and worst poet in his region simultaneously.

Edward is originally from Northern Ireland and has lived in Devon for over twenty years.

Eryn McDonald is a poet, performer, and survivor of the Bath Spa University Covid years during which they studied dance and drama and became one of those poets who can perform but can’t edit to save their life. They are a Lyra Festival Slam finalist, a two-time winner of the Milk Poetry Slam, and winner of the Mind Over Slammer Bristol Heat in 2024. They are currently touring their first pamphlet ‘Friezewood’, which explores the search for home in a queer neurodivergent body inside a mouldy weather-worn house inside a broken system. Their theatre show Girlhood on T co-created with poet Aish Humphreys will be showing at Queer Bath on the 14th of June at The Bell.

Our event doors open at 7pm, and the event begins at 7.30pm.

The rules:

• You have 3 minutes. You have a ten second 'grace period' after the 3 minutes ends. After that, points are deducted for every 5 seconds you go over. For example: -5 points at 3.11. -10 points at 3.16. Your time begins from your first word or gesture to the audience (including introductions but not including a concise content warning).
• You must be the original author of the poem (if a group poem then you must between you have created all the content).
• No AI written content.
• If you reference or quote someone else's work, it should be a very minor amount of the poem and where possible be credited unless an obvious well known quote that everyone would know isn't your work.
• No nudity.
• No props. No costumes. No backing tracks or instruments.
• No hate speech, defined as disparaging a group or person with less power than you. Examples include (but are not limited to) racism, transphobia, ableism, homophobia, ageism, descrimination based on religion or nationality.
• Please use the microphone, as this is for accessibility of our audience members using hearing aids that connect to the PA system.
• The majority of your poem should be spoken. It may contain less than 25% singing. No backing tracks or instruments.
• Whilst you do not have to perform in English, the judges can only judge what they can understand. So we recommend having a majority of English in your poem.
• Last rule is a traditional rule within the poetry slam community: the point is not the point, the point is the poetry! Remember that by having an audience's captive attention for 3 minutes you have already won. So enjoy it!

The event organisers have the final say on disqualifications and they can disqualify any poet for any reason.

https://linktr.ee/CandleLITSlam

https://www.thebathbrewhouse.com

We have 40% off concessions available for people who face financial barriers to the arts - please email [email protected] or DM us on Instagram for the code to apply at check out.

Please note that if you request a refund more than 48 hours before an event we will approve it, but the fee that eventbrite took when you bought your ticket they do not refund, so you will only recieve the amount that we recieved for your ticket. This is hidden information on the check out page so we've added it here for clarity.

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Host or Publisher Kathryn O'Driscoll