A haiku death match is coming to Belfast

The pen will indeed be mightier than the sword when the Belfast Poetry Festival kicks off on Friday. Closing out the first day of the festival will be a new event called the haiku death match, in which contestants will compete to quickly write the best poems in front of a live audience.

During the debut death match, which is happening at 7 p.m. in the Colonial Theater, competitors will be paired off and then allotted four minutes to write and finish their haikus using keywords shouted out by the audience. Eventually just one competitor will be left standing.

The goal of the new offering is to create a more interactive and fun way for participants and audience members to experience the festival in its 19th year, according to the city’s poet laureate, Maya Stein, who is organizing the weekend.

“Haiku seems like a very serious, sacred form of poetry, but this is a really energetic and fun way to experience poetry and to not take it quite so seriously, which is one of the things I was hoping for in helping to design this year’s festival,” Stein said.

The festival will run from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon, with events held throughout the city, such as poetry readings, performances, writing sessions, and workshops. Among the offerings will be a haiku workshop on Friday afternoon that will instruct participants on the 17-syllable style of poem.

During the death match that evening, master of ceremonies Mattie John Bamman will declare winners of each round based on which poems get the loudest response from the audience. There will also be a backup judge who can weigh in in the event of a tie. The winner will earn a literary-themed prize.

Stein decided to introduce the idea to the festival after participating in a similar competition several years ago in New York and making it as far as the semi-finals. More than a dozen participants are signed up so far, but it’s possible last-minute competitors may be selected from the audience if need be.

“I think it was really important to have this be our kick-off event for the festival, because it really does set the tone for the community coming together around poetry. This is something that anyone could come and join and be in the audience for,” Stein said.