Rhythm, emotion and community are the ingredients of Bread & Butter Poetry Slam, a monthly gathering in Sydney’s Inner West. On this final night, local voices stepped up for one last time before all the monthly winners move onto the Grand Final Slampionship at the Sydney Opera House on 19 December.
The monthly Bread & Butter slam nights are traditional at heart. Poets perform original three-minute pieces, and audience members are chosen to score them to find a finalist. Applause and audience feedback are the crux of the show, creating a truly immersive experience.
Not a polished literary affair, not a rehearsed spectacle, the monthly nights are something raw and unpredictable. Here, words are shared in the moment, mistakes are made, and the room hums with laughter, applause and nerves – the kind of excitement that only comes when people risk being seen.
Even though the structure is formal, the mood is relaxed and open.
Bread & Butter Poetry Slampionship – quick links
Voices, craft and stage presence
Jeremiah Gooseberrye, a competing poet, has been part of this scene for years. ‘The Bread & Butter community is a special one,’ she says. ‘I love that we come together each month, seasoned poets and newcomers alike, and leave nourished by each other’s storytelling.’
Clips from past shows highlight Gooseberrye’s strong stage presence, and bring out the humor, vulnerability and honesty that make the event stand out.
Still, the reels hide a quiet imbalance. Stage presence undeniably fuels the energy of a slam, but it also raises a harder question. When performance becomes the loudest tool in the room, does it elevate the poem or quietly limit its depth, making the craft feel secondary?
The close Bread & Butter slam poetry community
The event values both improvisation and discipline. Griffin Cooper Ryan, Slampion 2024, calls it ‘home in all the best ways’. Maybe that’s what it is, a place where everyone feels a sense of belonging, from nervous newcomers to experienced poets.
But this family-like warmth also deserves a closer look. Slam communities often build on a sense of belonging, yet that same closeness can blur the line between support and soft-pedalling, making honest critique harder to voice and shaping a shared aesthetic that risks becoming limited.
Alisha Brown, managing editor at literary journal The Suburban Review, says: ‘Bread & Butter is poetry done right…a warm, safe, welcoming, and relaxed space for performers of all levels to get behind the mic.’
Brown says even though it’s technically a competition, it never feels competitive. ‘It truly feels like a big, nerdy family of Inner West queers, creatives, and wordsmiths.’ Her words show that at Bread & Butter, craft and community are closely linked, and every performance is supported by care.
Bringing hard topics to the stage
At the last monthly performance, the poems themselves carried weight and breadth. Tess O’Sullivan confronted stigma and misunderstanding with quiet authority:
‘Schizophrenia is stigmatised
In the news, we are demonised
A threat to be neutralised
But you’d be surprised
We can be very civilised.’
Gavin Hanbridge, meanwhile, transformed memory and pain into a visceral experience:
‘Dreaming, you set it all on fire: the manky ropes to the past, the battleground replays, and all the clinging ghosts. As you bellow the blaze up to the black, your backstab wounds morph to motion, swelling streaks stretch to ashy feathers.’
Topics ranged from love and identity to social issues and everyday life.
Watching these performances, you noticed not just the words but also the movement, breath and intention behind them. The audience responded with clicks, laughter, sighs and cheers, adding to the room’s energy.
Clips from other nights show Gooseberrye’s calm presence, Steph Roy’s lively humor, and Oormila V Prahlad’s thoughtful storytelling. These are more than performances; they are moments of sharing and connection.
Moving onto the Bread & Butter Poetry Slampionship
As winners advance toward the Slampionship, the tension between community and competition is never far from the surface.
The Sydney Opera House stage may bring prestige and a larger audience, but it also raises questions. Will performing in such a formal, high-profile space change the intimacy, risk-taking or style that makes Bread & Butter so distinctive? And when elevating a grassroots event to a landmark venue, does the shine of prestige subtly shift priorities towards performance polish over the raw honesty that fuels the slam’s communal heart?
Honesty is central at Bread & Butter. There’s no space for empty performances. ‘You can tell when someone isn’t being truthful in their words,’ says Brown. ‘And like trends, the energy dies.’
Every pause, tear or laugh becomes part of the night, creating a rhythm built on real presence as well as words. But authenticity and performance are tangled. In three minutes, vulnerability can turn into a tool. Packaged pain and rehearsed confessions. When truth is measured by scores, how much is lived and how much is shaped for the stage?
It has the potential to be like the best classical art forms: structured yet flexible, disciplined yet spontaneous. Taking to the stage at the Sydney Opera House will test whether the event truly is a place where skill meets feeling, and performance meets audience to celebrate expression, empathy and the complexity of being human.
The 2025 Bread & Butter Poetry Slampionship will bring poets and listeners together again for another night that may linger or fade. In a city where creative spaces come and go, Bread & Butter reminds us that poetry, when built on honesty and community, offers something deeper than applause, something that might last, even if just for a moment.
The 2025 Bread & Butter Poetry Slampionship takes place at the Sydney Opera House on 19 December.
This article is published as part of ArtsHub’s Creative Journalism Fellowship, an initiative supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
